Dong Zhi, or the Winter Solstice Festival, was celebrated by the Chinese of ancient times. It was commemorated in much the same way Chinese Lunar New Year is now – with visits to friends and relatives. There is customary feasting and businesses will close up for the day. During this time, people will assemble to eat “tang yuan” (glutinous flour balls) symbolizing a united family and togetherness.
How do you define the winter solstice?
A solstice is an astronomical expression that explains the time of year when the sun is spaced very far away from our equator. There is one solstice in the summer, corresponding to the longest day of the year, and another in the winter, corresponding to the shortest day of the year. The seasons may vary, however, considering the hemisphere you are talking about.
Solstices are caused by the earth being tilted the farthest from the Sun for that hemisphere. While the earth orbits the sun, it meanwhile spins on its axis. This tilt causes one hemisphere to be closer to the sun, creating summer, while the other hemisphere is tilted further way, creating 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.
In the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice falls on either December 21st or 22nd each year when the sun appears directly above the tropic of Capricorn. For the southern hemisphere, the 20th or 21st of June is the winter solstice, which takes place when the sun shines directly over the tropic of Cancer.
The winter solstice is also known as the shortest day, because it marks the year’s shortest period of daylight and longest period of darkness. This is considered to be the midpoint of winter by many culture’s calendars. It is actually quite surprising that, in three thousand years, the date of the solstice has only shifted by one day.
Due to the fact that the sun seemed to be reborn as the days grew longer, a lot of ancient cultures naturally celebrated this time of rebirth as the winter solstice.
This was frequently thought of as a blessed transformation with the removal of evil from the earth since the darkness is considered evil, and this was overcome by the light which is considered to be good. Currently, celebrations of light are still observed by some cultures. As well as the Chinese Dong Zhi festival, the Germanic society observes Yule and the Hindus observe Diwali, a festival of light.
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