Day: December 22, 2010

Food Corner: Christmas Banquet 2010

Published by Sula H.

I haven’t told you much about our Christmas Banquet last Friday yet. Let me do so in today’s Food Corner. Well, after having had the same course of dishes for several years now, this year’s Christmas Banquet held a nice surprise. One of my American colleagues assisted in the kitchen and the result was a rather different banquet. Instead of squash soup with buttered bread buns, we enjoyed potato soup with bread that was baked with cheese and tomatoes. This was followed by a plate of various appetizers such as salads, sweet and sour chicken and meat with some kind of sauce, and yes, we also had cookies (I learned the cookies are a very typical side dish here in China!). The main course was mashed potatoes and pork with some steemed vegetables and our dinner was concluded with some sort of tiramisu. Aside from the fact that everything was cold by the time it got to us, it was quite an enjoyable dinner accompanied with the performances of lots of my colleagues, ranging anywhere …

Image from fotocommunity.com

Winter Solstice Festival

Published by Sula H.

I never got to tell you about the Dongzhi Festival (Winter Solstice Festival) or the Dumpling Day, as we commonly refer to it around here. Dongzhi literally means “arrival of winter” and it is one of the most important festivals in the Chinese calendar. It usually takes place on or around December 22, when the daylight is shortest and the nights longest. As with all the Chinese festivals, there are several traditional activities connected with the Dongzhi Festival: In the south of China, people traditionally make tangyuan (balls of glutinous rice) and eat them on this day. In the northern parts of China it is the dumplings that are made and eaten – thus our “Dumpling Day.” Ancestral worship is also part of the traditions observed on this day. At our school students usually get together with their classes at night and make dumplings which they will eat afterward. And in most cases those dumpling parties turn into huge flour battles among the students, resulting in everyone being covered in white at the time the …