Essay on Traditional Culture

One of the Traditional Cultures in Life: Eating Dumplings at Winter Solstice

In the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was a famous doctor named Zhang Zhongjing. He was so skillful that no matter what kind of disease he had, he could get rid of it with his hands, and people called him the Sage of Medicine.

Zhang Zhongjing was an official in Changsha, and he retired to his hometown in the middle of winter, when the wind was cold and the snow drifted. He saw those people who were running for their lives, dressed in thin clothes, and many of them had their ears frozen.

Zhang Zhongjing went home, his heart always remembered those rotten ears of the people, he told his disciples in Nanyang to find a piece of vacant land to pick up only occupied shed, set up the clothes pot, with mutton, chili and some cold-expelling medicinal grams in a pot to cook, and so on after the cooking, the mutton, the drugs fish out of the chopped up, wrapped in dough into the shape of an ear, and then put in the pot to cook. It was opened on the day of winter solstice, and was specially given to the injured people to eat. Zhang Zhongjing called this kind of medicine to cure injuries "Dispel Cold Jiao Ear Soup", and after eating it, people only felt warmth all over their body, and the two ears were hot, and their injuries were cured. (At the winter solstice, Zhang Zhongjing cooked dumplings for people to cure frostbite, and the "Cold-removing Jiao Er Tang" was born.)

Since then, every winter, Zhang Zhongjing has been making "Cold-removing Jiao Er Tang" and giving it to everyone to eat on the winter solstice to prevent and treat frostbite. Coincidentally, after many years, it was the day of the winter solstice again, Zhang Zhongjing left the world. In his honor, every year on the winter solstice, every family made dumplings to eat, and said that if they ate dumplings on the winter solstice, their ears would not freeze off. Until now, in some places, dumplings are called dumpling ears. (No coincidence, Zhang Zhongjing's death anniversary also happens to be the winter solstice, people in order to commemorate him, the winter solstice dumplings become customary.

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