Festivals · Around 21–22 December. Solar, not lunar.

Winter Solstice冬至

Not a public holiday, but observed everywhere, and an old saying holds that the solstice matters as much as New Year. It marks the turn back toward light. The food divide is the sharpest in the Chinese calendar and people are genuinely partisan about it: north of the Yangtze the day means dumplings, south of it means tangyuan. In Suzhou the solstice eve dinner is a bigger family occasion than in most of the country. It is a small, domestic festival — worth knowing because if you are in China that week, someone will ask you which side you are on.