Winter Solstice
With a blow of birthday candles, you age a year. You can also achieve that same effect by eating glutionous rice balls during the Tung Festival (Winter Solstice). It's supposedly a more important celebration than Chinese New Year. But it doesn't seem that way. We'll have to wait for the day it gets commercialized. When I was a little boy, I remember helping mum to roll the little balls. Some years, I would try to introduce some strange variations, but the round ones always come out tops. The next day, mum would boil the glutionous rice balls and it would be served with a sweet gula melaka gravy or a savoury chicken-prawn clear soup. I love the latter. I would eat the number of rice balls corresponding to my new age + 1. This year, my mum did not prepare my favourite version, but she did outdo herself with the reunion dinner. It was a salivating dinner of lotus rout soup, sweet and sour crab, fried pomfret, stir-fried choy sam fah, roasted duck, herbal chicken and tomyam fish! We whacked everything in one sitting! Imagine that...
I only ate 7 glutionous rice balls this year. Will it stop the hands of time for me?
I only ate 7 glutionous rice balls this year. Will it stop the hands of time for me?
Comments
For so many years i didnt celebrate this festival at my hometown as it it meaningless with not everyone sitting at the table and REUNION in heart and soul.
However, it became special when i have it with my beloved friends during uni time and now. Thanks for that my dear...JM and Wil.
It slowly is! Notice all the news articles about people selling tang yen of different fillings bla bla bla.
Certainly reminds you of the Mooncake festival being commercialized, no?
I didn't know tong yuen comes in chicken-prawn soup.
Of course I counted. Didn't want to waste too much stomach space before the feast.
So kwa, ah? ;p
@Zemien:
I guess I'll know when they have Dragon Fruit Tong Yuen.
@Venge:
Yeah, the normal variant is the ginger soup kind.
@DanielH:
Makan, jangan tak makan!
@JustMe:
That's what I was afraid of. :D