Zhuang Yuan and Tang Yuan

When I heard that the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall was having a Winter Solstice event, I just expected that several of their participating member associations would set up some decorated stalls, and there would be tang yuan to sample. When I arrived there (lugging pots, pans, tang yuan, sweet ginger soup, decorative knick-knacks, bowls, and plates), I was shocked to find the main hall conquered droves of school children. Turns out that the major event for the day was "Zhang Yuan : 19th Assessment of Classics Recitation". Zhang yuan translates to scholar, and the event mirrors the public examinations of ancient China. They even had a giant banner of Confucious up on stage. Some very young kids were also taking part. They clung to their mothers, and they would whisper recitations of Chinese classics into the ears of examiners (recognizable from their bright vests).



A voting was supposed to take place for the best decorated stall and most delicious tang yuan, so we quickly set up our stall for the Malaysia Spring Single Mothers' Society. We didn't really have a theme. Just threw together what we could dig our respective homes. The end result was pretty good. Not as good as professionals from Formosa Women Organisation of Malaysia, or the women's division of the Federation of Hakka Associations of Malaysia, but we were proud of our effort. Among the exhibitors were many creative ideas~ some sculpted tang yuan dough into creative shapes, some arranged tang yuan into Chinese characters, and some coloured with butterfly pea flowers, some shaped like animals, ingots, Santa Claus even. An element of multi-culturalism was also introduced with participation from an Islamic NGO and an Indian charity. Muslim orphans were also given the chance to make their own tang yuan.





At the other end of the hall were the food counters where many varieties of tang yuan could be found. Dry, soupy, sweet, savoury, rolled in ground peanuts, pork inside, cheese inside, all sorts! I could not accept the Indian version due to spices that they used, and the Malay version was called Butir Nangka, all the way from Kelantan. Everyone was a given a chance to vote for their favourite.





On stage, there were various performances like Chinese traditional song and dance, face-changing, and Indian dance. Towards the end, they had a scholar's parade, mimicking the practice in ancient China where a successful scholar visits his hometown with mum pomp and grandeur. The whole lot of them marched outside and crossed the 'Scholar's Bridge' before reentering the hall, greeted by shouts of "the scholars are back, the scholars are back!". The best scholars were picked by marking out their names with an ink brush on the board, and in the end, everyone celebrated their graduation by wearing a cardboard zhang yuan hat. But strangely, some of the winners wore mortar boards. Rojak!









Once the winter solstice winners were announced (we didn't win anything), we packed up and lugged everything back to the car. A long day, but that was not the end. Mum and I stopped at Take Eat Easy for a late lunch. Glued myself to the comfortable armchair and sipped coffee. Later in the evening, we headed to sunset mass. From there, we headed to Bala's Banana Leaf for a dinner of apam manis, chapati, and naan with SK. Slept like a baby that night.