The Tang Yuan Festival

In ancient times, the Chinese people celebrated the Winter Solstice Festival (Dong Zhi) by visiting relatives and friends, in much the same way as the Chinese Lunar New Year. There is customary feasting, and businesses will close up for the day. Glutinous floor balls known as “tang yuan” are consumed as a symbol of family unity and harmony on this day.

How do you define the winter solstice?

An astronomical word that defines the day of the year when the sun is farthest away from the equator is “solstice.” Solstices happen twice, once in the summertime and once in the wintertime and this results in either the longest day or shortest day out of the year. The time that this occurs depends on which hemisphere you are talking about.

A solstice is created when the earth tilts away from the sun for a particular hemisphere. While the earth is orbiting around the sun, it is also spinning on its axis. This tilting results in one hemisphere being nearer to the sun, causing the summer while the adjacent hemisphere is further away, causing the winter.

The word solstice is derived from “solstitium”, which is a Latin word. The word solstitium is derived from the Latin word “sol”, or sun, and “stitium”, which translates to stop. When the solstice occurs, the sun looks like it has done exactly that. It reaches nearly the same elevation at noon every day during the several days prior to and following the solstice.

The winter solstice for the northern hemisphere occurs on one of two dates: December 21st or 22nd every year and the sun will be shinning directly over the tropic of Capricorn.  June 20th or 21st is the winter solstice for the southern hemisphere, which occurs when the sun is shinning directly over the tropic of Cancer.

The winter solstice marks the day of the year that has the shortest amount of daylight and the longest amount of night. This is the midpoint of winter for many culture’s calendars. Amazingly, in over three thousand years, the date of solstice has been moved by only a single day.

A lot of older civilizations observed the winter solstice as a period of being reborn, because the sun looks like it is regenerated and the daylight lasts longer.

Today, festivals of light are still celebrated by some cultures.  In addition to the Chinese Dong Zhi festival, the Germanic cultures celebrate Yule and Hindus celebrate Diwali, a festival of light.

Tags: winter solstice