This Precious Life

Today, the Chinese all around the world celebrates the Winter Solstice Festival.

Has it ever occurred to you how weird it is to be celebrating midwinter when you’re living in a tropical climate? In fact, it must have been around 150 years since anyone in my family lived in a country where there’s 4 seasons a year. We’ve migrated to Malaysia where the climate is tropical all through the year!

Yet, we continue to celebrate the Winter Solstice with much joy and merriment. No one ever complains about celebrating Winter Solstice because on this day, we get to feast a sumptuous dinner and finish that off with sweet dessert. The only other times we get to have dessert after dinner is when we’re attending a Chinese wedding, so it’s quite a treat.

It’s quite fun to make the dessert too. You roll up the wet glutinous flour around a ball of sugar, then boil these balls in a stock of sugar and ginger. It’s spicy and delicious.
Image credit: Orange@Flickr
There’s something else about the Winter Solstice Festival that’s really weird. The Chinese says that the Winter Solstice is the day of everyone’s birth. That means, as a Chinese, I get to celebrate two birthdays a year – once on 13th September (remember that!), and once on the 21st or 22nd December.

Now, wouldn’t you like to convert to become a Chinese – you get to be weird but happy. :)