A Chinese Festival
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During this time of year, there are a couple of well-known festive days, Christmas being the most well-known (and somehow, in Malaysia this year, most controversial), followed by Hanukkah.
For the Chinese, there’s also the Winter Solstice festival, which falls on 21 December - yup, that’s today.
In the Northern Hemisphere, today is the shortest day of the year, with the least number of daylight hours. After today, daylight hours will increase until they reach the maximum on 21 June, which marks summer solstice.
I’ve written about this before in Chet’s Chatter v1, so I’ll just copy and paste here what I wrote there:
| I’m more a Winter Solstice person. Partly because I’m Chinese and partly because I realise Winter Solstice offers something more positive to look forward to - longer daylight hours per day - whereas, after Summer Solstice, what can you look forward to except more and more hours of darkness?
The Westerners celebrate Summer Solstice. The Chinese celebrate Winter Solstice. The Chinese phrase for Winter Solstice is gor tung (Cantonese pronunciation), which means “crossing winter” or the passing of winter, or even surviving winter. Summer Solstice is just one day, perhaps the brightest spot in the life of its fans, but Winter Solstice heralds better days ahead! |
For those in the Northern Hemisphere, better days mean increasing number of daylight hours.
For me, better days really mean just that - better. I’ve been in a foul mood over work (having to endure sh*t from other people in my department), and my only consolation is that this (the foul mood) will pass (altho the sh*t and the people it came from probably won’t). Meanwhile …
Hey!
Trust the Lord to work a miracle right here and now. *giggle*
He’s brought to mind a song by Point of Grace, “Better Days” - how appropriate. Here’s the chorus:
| Better days are on the way my friend Just a ways on down the line I believe that just around the bend Everything’s gonna be fine Better days are just a dream right now It’s like all you do is pray But the world keeps turning Bringing us better days |
Wow …
Thank you, Lord!
Note - To listen to a sample of the song, click on the link below, scroll down the page to the song list, look for “Better Days” and choose either Windows Media or RealOne Player format.
