We talked about the Winter Festival, 冬döng至zhì, what is the meaning for this festival. Just for the record, this year the Winter Festival falls on 22nd of December. And similar to all Chinese festivals, we eat special food - though which is also consumed on regular days - as a token of celebration for this traditionally special occasion.
One thing that marks Chinese tradition as special is the medical practice passed on through 4 millennia. Rather than medical skills such as operation on human bodies, Chinese medical practice is more of herbal treatment of the new age, mixing with some diagnostic techniques that sound more like mysterious martial art (功göng夫fü, if you'd prefer). Since yours truly here is no where near that secret art, we'll just touch on some surface knowledge to give you a glimpse of this endless source of knowledge.
As we human actually share a much tighter bound with the mother Earth, seasonal changes affect us more than we could imagine. Through years of observation and testing, the ancient Chinese physicians concluded that people should consume certain types of food in order to compensate what would be needed in the change of season. By eating these types of food, which effects like getting a vaccine injection or a flu shot, our bodies are strengthened to resist the drastic change and remain healthy with minimum to no sickness.
For 冬döng至zhì, 水sŭi饺jiăo (dumpling) and 汤täng圆yúan (rice ball) are the two major food group for this festival. 水sŭi饺jiăo is mostly a northern tradition, and汤täng圆yúan the south. This mainly relates closely to the weather, as the winter in the northern part of China is much colder than the south.
There are many legends about how水sŭi饺jiăo came to being. Following is the one I saw mostly in the articles I researched. There was a prestige physician in the province of 河hér南nán by the name of 张zhäng仲zhòng景jĭn, his skill was well praised as the patients he treated tended to recover faster and better. Dr. 张zhäng noticed a number of poor people lived by the river suffered from frost-bites especially on the ears. As he was busy treating the winter flu crowds, he kept thinking about how to help these poor people who apparently did not have money to seek his medical assistance.
One day, Dr. 张zhäng asked his assistants to take care of the clinic, while he himself brought medicine, a pot and some cooking material with him to the riverside where the poor were. While he cooked the material in the pot, he started to treat these poor and provided them with free medicine for their illness. The material cooked in the pot consisted of thin slices of lamb meat, hot peppers, and some herbs with medicated effect to repel coldness of the body. After all these were well cooked, he drain these and wrapped in round wrapping made of flour, folded the stuffing inside the wrapping into a crescent shape that looked like an ear, and boiled the stuffed ears in the hot water. He then distributed these soup with stuffed ears for the poor to eat. After eating the hot food with coldness repelling effect stuffing, the poor felt warm from with in and to the ear, and the frost-bite on the ears gradually healed. Because of the effect, 张zhäng named the soup 却qùe寒hán娇jiäo耳ĕr汤täng. 却qùe寒hán means to repel the cold/chill, and 娇jiäo耳ĕr here means to pamper the ears, 汤täng is the character for soup. 娇jiäo耳ĕr refers to the ear like dumplings in the soup. That is also how 饺jiăo子tzi is derived: from娇jiäo耳ĕr gradually became 饺jiăo儿ér, then finally 饺jiăo子tzi. The character 饺jiăo adopts the sound 交jiäo, and the meaning of 食shí, food. In the cold day, a steaming hot plate of饺jiăo子tzi dumplings really warms you up from top to toe.
As for汤täng圆yúan, the rice ball, the traditional festival food for the southern China, the most commonly read story was about a family of beggars that traveled to a town when the mother finally died from hunger and illness. In order to bury the mother, the father was forced to sell the daughter to a rich family as a servant. When the father left, the daughter cried so hard that broke her father's heart. The old beggar took out a couple of sticky rice balls, the cheap way to conserve food for the road, and shared with his daughter, promising her that he would come back to visit her and share with her rice balls as they did that day. Three years went by but the father never did return to visit the daughter. She was afraid that her father could not recognize the house, so she pasted two rice ball on the front door saying the balls were offerings for the gods of the front door, when in fact, the rice balls served as marking in the hope that her father would come knocking some day, visiting her and sharing the rice balls as he had promised. Since汤täng圆yúan, which was also served in hot sweetened soup, sounded like 团túang圆yúan (reunited, gatherings), people followed the practice until now - hoping the all the love ones could be reunited and gathered together to celebrate the end of the year.
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One thing that marks Chinese tradition as special is the medical practice passed on through 4 millennia. Rather than medical skills such as operation on human bodies, Chinese medical practice is more of herbal treatment of the new age, mixing with some diagnostic techniques that sound more like mysterious martial art (功göng夫fü, if you'd prefer). Since yours truly here is no where near that secret art, we'll just touch on some surface knowledge to give you a glimpse of this endless source of knowledge.
As we human actually share a much tighter bound with the mother Earth, seasonal changes affect us more than we could imagine. Through years of observation and testing, the ancient Chinese physicians concluded that people should consume certain types of food in order to compensate what would be needed in the change of season. By eating these types of food, which effects like getting a vaccine injection or a flu shot, our bodies are strengthened to resist the drastic change and remain healthy with minimum to no sickness.
One day, Dr. 张zhäng asked his assistants to take care of the clinic, while he himself brought medicine, a pot and some cooking material with him to the riverside where the poor were. While he cooked the material in the pot, he started to treat these poor and provided them with free medicine for their illness. The material cooked in the pot consisted of thin slices of lamb meat, hot peppers, and some herbs with medicated effect to repel coldness of the body. After all these were well cooked, he drain these and wrapped in round wrapping made of flour, folded the stuffing inside the wrapping into a crescent shape that looked like an ear, and boiled the stuffed ears in the hot water. He then distributed these soup with stuffed ears for the poor to eat. After eating the hot food with coldness repelling effect stuffing, the poor felt warm from with in and to the ear, and the frost-bite on the ears gradually healed. Because of the effect, 张zhäng named the soup 却qùe寒hán娇jiäo耳ĕr汤täng. 却qùe寒hán means to repel the cold/chill, and 娇jiäo耳ĕr here means to pamper the ears, 汤täng is the character for soup. 娇jiäo耳ĕr refers to the ear like dumplings in the soup. That is also how 饺jiăo子tzi is derived: from娇jiäo耳ĕr gradually became 饺jiăo儿ér, then finally 饺jiăo子tzi. The character 饺jiăo adopts the sound 交jiäo, and the meaning of 食shí, food. In the cold day, a steaming hot plate of饺jiăo子tzi dumplings really warms you up from top to toe.
Click here to learn more about Chinese culture
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