Saturday, 13 December 2008

you may not know this about me, but i like chinese stories. like the stories behind the chinese festivals and holidays. they are really interesting, but often mythical and unrealistic. the next major festival is Dong Zhi (冬至) and is on December 22 this year (as it follows the chinese calendar it is different every year but is usually December 21 or 22). and on this day, we eat something called "tang yuan" (汤圆) which are glutinous rice balls, usually served in a sweet gingery soup, but there are variations to this soup like soya bean soup. sometimes the rice balls have fillings like red bean paste or lotus root paste. these balls are elastic and chewy. :) i love them.

the tang yuan sometimes come in colours, the common ones being pink and green. most years i help my mother make them. sometimes we make them into cubes and cylinders instead of the conventional round balls. mmm. yum. also, tang yuan sounds like the chinese "tuan yuan" which means something like family unity. on this day families often meet together for a reunion dinner. but i hardly ever do this. d:

so getting to the story. one version of the story (this one i found online) is that there was once a poor family who caught a fish to celebrate Dong Zhi. While the mother was eating it, she accidentally swallowed a fish bone. out of somewhere a beggar appeared and begged them for food. the daughter gave him some of the remanding fish as that was all they had, and in return the beggar gave the mother lumps of dough to swallow to get rid of the bone in her throat. throughout the village, people started hearing about this and believed that eating this dough would ward off bad luck and all started eating it. of course, this story is rather dull.

another version is that there were a fmaily of beggars, a couple and their daughter. the wife was very ill one winter and was going to die. her husband needed money to buy her a plot in the graveyard so he had no choice but to sell his daughter as a servant. the father was very sad he had to part with his daughter, and both were weak. he decided that they should at least have one lst meal together. so, he begged for some food and got some glutinous rice dough which he then rolled into balls. they both did not want to take the first bite and eat all of it so they split it and both had half a ball. the father said "this tang yuan is like our unity, it is separating." or something like that. the daughter left soon after. three years passed. the daughter missed her father more and more, especially on Dong Zhi. one year, she told her master that all the kings were eating tang yuan and he should do it too, as well as offer some to the gods on the mantle. so the master put some at the window, and the girl hoped that her father would come back looking for her and would find the right house.

one more interesting story is that there was once a spy sent by the head god to earth to watch all of the bad things that people do. when the spy found anyone doing anything bad he would immediately report it to the head god who would then punish them. when the people found out, they decided to serve him tang yuan so that it would stick his mouth shut and he couldn't tell the head god what they were doing. i don't know what it has to do with Dong Zhi but it's my favourite story. :)

there's a lot of other versions, too many, in fact to write out on my blog. so, until next time!

you are at the top of my lungs,
drawn to the ones who never yawn.

15:00