What is the winter solstice circle and its historical origin?

Winter solstice is one of the 24 important solar terms among Chinese people. Every winter solstice, northerners eat jiaozi, but in many parts of the south, the seasonal food at this time is glutinous rice balls, also known as winter solstice yen. So today, let's take a look at the historical origin of the sweet and delicious winter solstice.

In ancient agricultural society, one or two days before the winter solstice, every family began to prepare sacrifices for the festival and prepare to make dumplings. First, soak the glutinous rice in water, grind it into rice slurry with a stone mill, and then squeeze out the water. On the night before the winter solstice, all the families get together and knead it into jiaozi. Marionettes are divided into red and white, the red one is called "Golden Circle" and the white one is called "Silver Circle".

On the winter solstice, before dawn, women get up and make a fire to cook jiaozi. First, they worship their ancestors, and then the whole family eats jiaozi together. Therefore, eating jiaozi on the solstice in winter means not only the gradual return of the sun, but also reunion. Modern people prefer to regard it as a symbol of perfection.

In Fujian and Taiwan, after eating the Japanese yen in winter, people still have to put two tablets on the doors, windows, tables, cupboards, ladders, beds and other conspicuous places at home, even fishermen's bows, farmers' horns and fruit trees planted by fruit farmers are no exception. Lin Zaifu, a famous scholar in modern Taiwan Province, described the date of the winter festival in Taiwan Province Province in his book Minnan People: "Every family should make a round winter solstice in the morning to pay homage to their ancestors ... from the gate, door, window, warehouse door, bed, cabinet, table, well, toilet, cowshed and pigsty.

In Taiwan Province, there is a touching and tearful legend about putting a knocker on the solstice circle in winter. It is said that once upon a time there was a family of three who wandered the streets and became beggars. Among them, the mother was hungry and gave up breathing. After the daughter cried bitterly, she decided to sell herself to bury her mother, but her father was too hungry to walk. The daughter gave her father a few winter festival rings she just bought, and the father and daughter pushed them around.

When they left, the father and the daughter agreed that no matter where their daughter went to work, they would stick two winter festival rings on the master's knocker every winter festival, so that the father would not find the wrong door in the future. After that, the father and daughter cried, one day apart.

The following winter festival, the daughter who was a servant girl in the rich man's house missed her father. She had a plan and said to her boss, "We should respect our ancestors and door gods in winter festivals, so as to welcome the God of Wealth." The host is superstitious, and after listening to it, he thinks it makes sense, so he asks the maid to stick two dumplings on the knocker of the gate, which has become a habit at home since then.

In this way, autumn came and winter came. Five years later, my father finally found this family with a round winter festival on the knocker, and the father and daughter reunited. Later, they had their own home, but every winter festival, both father and daughter never forget that bitter past, and always put a winter festival circle on the knocker. Later, villagers and neighbors followed suit, in order to pin their memories and blessings on relatives from afar, hoping that they would go home as soon as possible. Over time, they add rich humanistic customs to winter festivals.