In the twelfth lunar month, every place’s climate enters into the coldest period of a year. Because Laba Rice Porridge Festival is very close to Midwinter Festival, it will be unavoidable to talk about the Midwinter Festival when Laba Festival is mentioned. Since the Midwinter Festival in the twelfth lunar month, the coldest time of winter starts. Midwinter Festival used to be one of the important festivals in the Chinese culture. In ancient time, people pay great attention to Midwinter Festival. Our country used to consider Midwinter Festival as the beginning of a year from Zhou Dynasty to Qin Dynasty. In Han Dynasty, Midwinter Festival was “Winter Festival” and governments would hold celebrating ceremonies, which was called “Celebrating Winter”(“贺冬”in Chinese) and had holiday routinely. After Song Dynasty, Midwinter Festival was the day for worshiping ancestors. People would worship parents and elders; emperors would hold sacrificial ceremonies for heavens out of their palaces. For this reason, Midwinter Festival has got the name of “sub-New Year Festival” since the ancient time and the saying of “Midwinter is as important as New Year” is popular among the Chinese culture. Common people call it “冬至节”.

Why is midwinter as important as New Year? This is a phenomenon of the going of history. In ancient Chinese culture, another calendar was popular, in which midwinter was settled as New Year’s Day so that people would celebrate it grandly. Until the lunar calendar was used, the position of midwinter decreased and gradually forgotten by people. Up to this day, only a few people know it. This is just like the phenomenon that we have the New Year’s Day of solar calendar and the New Year’s Day of lunar calendar, the folk pay more attention to the New Year’s Day of lunar calendar than the one of solar calendar, for it has been not long since we use solar calendar.

In Chinese culture, As early as the Spring and Autumn Period two thousand years ago, midwinter was the earliest one of the 24 solar terms that determined by observing sun with an ancient observation tool. Midwinter is the day which has shortest day and longest night. After this day, daylight will be longer and longer day by day. An old saying said, “干净冬至邋遢年”, which means that if it is fine on the day of Midwinter Festival, the following year will rain continuously or snow heavily. This is the experience of ancient people and always proved right.

There used to have the proverb of “若要富，冬至吃块热豆腐” in the folk. In countryside, Midwinter Festival was a season that the farm work of a year ends and the farm work of the next year starts. In warmer southern areas, farmers were accustomed to pick seeds on the day of Midwinter Festival. To welcome the new farm work, they would have a bowl of hot tofu in their midwinter dishes, which means that they would feel warm in heart and do better job in the next year.

Another old saying goes, “冬至馄饨夏至面“. There is a story about eating wontons on Midwinter Festival. In Han Dynasty, there were two tribes in Northern China intruding the border areas of Han Dynasty, whose leaders’ family names were “Hun” and “Tun”. Common people hated these two leaders very much. Thus they filled flour wrappers with meat and used “Hun” and “Tun” as the name of this food——“Huntun (Wonton in English)”. They hated them, therefore they could eat “them” in order to pray for peaceful life and get rid of wars. Because the day that made wonton was on the day of Midwinter Festival, common peoples then made an agreement spontaneously that all of the families should have wonton on Midwinter Festival. Some people think that eating white ternip on Midwinter Festival can cure diseases like sore throat. This is the experience that people concluded through social life and it has been proved that white ternip is really good for health.