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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Winter Solstice .. or 'Kor Tung' in Cantonese

Today is 'kor tung' ...also known as Winter Solstice or Dong Zhi Festival. My folks used to say...'Tung tai kor nin' .. translated to mean...'Winter Solstice Festival is more important than Chinese New Year'. And a lot even told me that you are 1 year older after Kor Tung instead of Chinese New Year (CNY).

As children , I used to think only that 'Kor Tung' is the day where we eat 'Tang yuen' .. glutinuous ball dumplings (plain or filled), coloured with some red and even green in ginger sugar water. This is also the day where we met all our uncles, aunties, cousins, etc etc and had a good dinner... something similar to 'Tuen Nin Fan' (The evening meal before 1st day of CNY). Yea.. it was all about eating and playing then. I remember the good old days when my grandparents (now in the land of paradise :)) would call all their children and grandchildren home. They would play chef and cooked a good meal for all. My aunties would be busy helping in the kitchen, the men chatting outside and us children... play la, of course. In fact, we have this gathering almost every week as my grandparents were very particular about family get together. Just that on festives, the food got better.

Quite a pity, things weren't the same after they departed. Now, the grandchildren, my generation, we have our own family.. thus our own celebration. So... today, my brother and my family are taking my mum to celebrate 'kor tung'. We are going to eat Steamboat!! My kids have never tried steam boat before... so I told my maid to line their stomach first just in case... that is IF we are taking them along :). Knowing how they love 'kai kai' (outing), they will most likely follow. My husband side of the family.. unfortunately we will miss the celebration with them. Afterall, this is a working day. Hope that there will be no heavy traffic when I rush home later.

Happy Kor Tung to you all... have a wonderful time with your family :)

4 comments:

Rene Lee said...

Happy Kor Tung to your family!

I do get a little nostalgic each time I think of our family gatherings when grandpa and grandma were alive. We had so much fun.

Was telling my parents how I miss the cooking too...the fried chicken (I still remember the taste, but no one does it that way), the carp fish (lei yu) cooked in garlic, grandma's char yoke, etc. Now that grandpa and grandma is no longer around, the recipes have gone with them too. But the happy memories shall always remain fresh in our mind.

Joanne said...

yaya! I was just asking my mum the other day if she knows how to cook our grandpa's specialty - the lei yu with garlic... I have been craving for it!!! I cans till remember the yummy taste.
Those were the good old days, really.

Rene Lee said...

We know a place in Cheras where they cook this dish pretty well...but with tilapia instead of lei yu. Of course, it's never as good as the way grandpa does it.

Perhaps, instead of 8 legs, we could go to this place dinner.

Reanaclaire said...

I also dont know much about toong chit, all my mum told me was it is more important than cny.. kon leen.. so it is a "must" to make the tong yuen on the 22nd dec each year.. :)

greetings from www.reanaclaire.com

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