Dongzhi

The story behind the day

Dongzhi is the Chinese winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, which falls in late December and counts, from the Beginning of Spring, as the twenty-second of the twenty-four solar terms. From this day, tradition holds, the yang energy of heaven and earth begins to grow. It is above all a family occasion: ancestors are honoured, relatives gather for a meal, and people eat dumplings in much of the north and sweet glutinous rice balls, tangyuan, in the south.^[1–5]

Origins

The ancient Chinese divided the Sun's yearly path into twenty-four segments, the solar terms, which guided farming and daily life, and Dongzhi, counted from the Beginning of Spring, is the twenty-second of them. The ancients held that from the winter solstice the active, yang force of heaven and earth began to gather strength. The solstice also anchors the calendar: court astronomers fixed the first day of the lunar year at the second new moon after it, and the Lunar New Year still falls then.^{[1–2, 7–8]}

What it marks

Dongzhi marks the turn from deepest winter towards spring, and the custom of counting the nines makes that turn a countdown: the days after the solstice fall into nine spans of nine days, and when eighty-one have passed, spring is said to arrive. It also marks the family. The day is a time to pay respects to ancestors, and the round rice balls carry the sense of reunion, much as the word yuan means round and so complete.^{[3, 5, 9]}

How it came to be

By the Han dynasty the solstice was treated as dongjie, the winter festival. The countdown of the nines grew pastimes of its own: in the Qing, a verse about the coming of spring, nine characters of nine strokes each, was prepared in outline and filled in one stroke a day from the solstice. The state kept its own rite as well: in imperial Beijing the emperor offered sacrifice to Heaven at the winter solstice, and the Circular Mound Altar of the Temple of Heaven was the place for it.^{[6, 10–11]}

How it is kept

tangyuan steaming on a winter table — Tangyuan steaming on a winter tableIllustration · AI-generated

Customs differ by region. In northern China dumplings (jiaozi) are the food of the day, and a northern saying warns that anyone who skips them will have frozen ears that winter; mutton soup is also eaten in parts of the north. In the south sweet glutinous rice dumplings take their place, as in Guangdong and Fujian. Feasts on the day are traditionally built around nourishing foods, called winter supplements, in keeping with the medical view that eating well now strengthens the body. Families honour their ancestors, and many also count the nines until spring.^{[3–4, 9, 12–14]}

Sources

Each statement above was checked against published sources; the verdict says whether it stood as written, was corrected or was hedged.