冬至英语演讲

On December , 3, the day is the Winter Solstice, it is an important day in China, it becomes a tradition. More than 00years ago, Chinese people had detected this day by measuring the sun. What is special on the day? The answer is that the daytime lasts the shortest while the night lasts the longest of the year. It means the new round of the solar term, the Winter Solstice is the earliest.

As an old tradition, people treat that day a grand day, they celebrate it. In the north, most people eat dumplings, while in the south, people have rice dumpling and boiled dumpling. Though people celebrate in a different way, they share the same happiness, family get together and have a big dinner. Winter Solstice gives family a chance to get reunion, the young come home to have a chat with parents and promote their communication.

On December 22, 2013, the day is the Winter Solstice, it is an important day in China, it becomes a tradition. More than 2500years ago, Chinese people had detected this day by measuring the sun. What is special on the day? The answer is that the daytime lasts the shortest while the night lasts the longest of the year. It means the new round of the solar term, the Winter Solstice is the earliest.

As an old tradition, people treat that day a grand day, they celebrate it. In the north, most people eat dumplings, while in the south, people have rice dumpling and boiled dumpling. Though people celebrate in a different way, they share the same happiness, family get together and have a big dinner. Winter Solstice gives family a chance to get reunion, the young come home to have a chat with parents and promote their communication.

Winter solstice is a very important solar term in Chinese Lunar calendar.

Being a traditional holiday as well, it is still now celebrated quite often in many regions. Early during the Spring and Autumn period, 2500 odd years from now, Winter solsticewas first determined as the Chinese traditional solar term among the total 24 terms. In Gregorian calendar, it is around Dec 22nd or 23rd.

Midwinter day is the very day in North hemisphere with the shortest day and longest night year-round. After it, daytime will become increasingly longer and the coldest clime will invade all the places on the Northern part of the globe. We Chinese always call it "JinJiu", which means once Winter solstice comes, we will meet the coldest time ahead.

That conclusion is proved well founded. According to scientific results, on Winter solstice, a right angle is formed by the sun and the tropic of carpricorn. Thus, the North hemisphere receives the least sunlight and the shortest day and longest night occur.

Ancient china did pay great attention to this holiday, regarding it as a big event. There was the saying that "Winter solstice holiday is greater than the spring festival". Nowadays, many regions still celebrate it as a big holiday. Northerners may have dumplings and raviolis that day while southerners may have dumplings made by rice and long noodles. Some places even have the tradition to offer sacrifices to the heaven and earth.

As early as 2,500 years ago, about the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC), China had determined the point of Winter Solstice by observing movements of the sun with a sundial. It is the earliest of the 24 seasonal division points. The time will be each December 22 or 23 according to the Gregorian calendar.

The Northern hemisphere on this day experiences the shortest daytime and longest nighttime. After the Winter Solstice, days will become longer and longer. As ancient Chinese thought, the yang, or muscular, positive things will become stronger and stronger after this day, so it should be celebrated.

The Winter Solstice became a festival during the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) and thrived in the Tang and Song dynasties (618-1279). The Han people regarded Winter Solstice as a "Winter Festival", so officials would organize celebrating activities. On this day, both officials and common people would have a rest. The army was stationed in, frontier fortresses closed and business and traveling stopped. Relatives and friends presented to each other delicious food. In the Tang and Song dynasties, the Winter Solstice was a day to offer scarifies to Heaven and ancestors. Emperors would go to suburbs to worship the Heaven; while common people offered sacrifices to their deceased parents or other relatives. The Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) even had the record that "Winter Solstice is as formal as the Spring Festival," showing the great importance attached to this day.

In some parts of Northern China, people eat dumpling soup on this day; while residents of some other places eat dumplings, saying doing so will keep them from frost in the upcoming winter. But in parts of South China, the whole family will get together to have a meal made of red-bean and glutinous rice to drive away ghosts and other evil things. In other places, people also eat tangyuan, a kind of stuffed small dumpling ball made of glutinous rice flour. The Winter Solstice rice dumplings could be used as sacrifices to ancestors, or gifts for friends and relatives. The Taiwan people even keep the custom of offering nine-layer cakes to their ancestors.

They make cakes in the shape of chicken, duck, tortoise, pig, cow or sheep with glutinous rice flour and steam them on different layers of a pot. These animals all signify auspiciousness in Chinese tradition. People of the same surname or family clan gather at their ancestral temples to worship their ancestors in age order. After the sacrificial ceremony, there is always a grand banquet.