Sì (pronounced , , transcribed as sì in

Foochow Romanized Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian, China. The city lies between the Min River estuary to the south and the city of Ningde to the north. Together, Fuzhou and Ningde make up the Mindong linguistic and cultural region. Fuzhou's population was 8 ...

) is a traditional spherical dessert made from

glutinous rice Domestication syndrome refers to two sets of phenotypic traits that are common to either domesticated plants or domesticated animals. Domesticated animals tend to be smaller and less aggressive than their wild counterparts; they may also hav ...

, eaten in celebration of the

Winter Solstice The winter solstice, or hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth's geographical pole, poles reaches its maximum axial tilt, tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere (Northern Hemisphere, Northern and So ...

festival in

Fuzhou Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian, China. The city lies between the Min River (Fujian), Min River estuary to the south and the city of Ningde to the north. Together, Fuzhou and Ningde make up the Eastern Min, Mindong linguistic and cultural regi ...

Fujian Province Fujian is a province in southeastern China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefecture city by population is Qua ...

, China. It is usually produced without filling, in contrast to the tangyuan. The sì is made by grinding glutinous rice into a powder, pressing the powder until almost dry, and then rolling the dry powder into a spherical shape, and finally adding fried (even burnt) soybean powder mixed with

brown sugar Brown sugar is a sucrose sugar product with a distinctive brown color due to the presence of molasses. It is either an unrefined or partially refined soft sugar consisting of sugar crystals with some residual molasses content or produced by t ...

onto the glutinous rice sphere. The pronunciation of 𥻵 is the same as 時 (time, fortune) in

Fuzhou dialect The Fuzhou language ( zh, t=福州話, s=福州话, p=Fúzhōuhuà; FR: ), also Foochow, Hokchew, Hok-chiu, or Fuzhounese, is the prestige variety of the Eastern Min branch of Min Chinese spoken mainly in the Mindong region of Eastern Fujian ...

of Chinese. The "turn" in fortune is embodied in a well-known

chengyu ''Chengyu'' ( zh, t=, s=, first=t, p=chéngyǔ, tr=set phrase) are a type of traditional Chinese idiomatic expressions, most of which consist of four Chinese characters. ''Chengyu'' were widely used in Literary Chinese and are still common in ...

(), often linked to the Winter Solstice, which in the Fuzhou dialect is pronounced the same as "

hen Hen commonly refers to a female animal: a female chicken, other gallinaceous bird, any type of bird in general, or a lobster. It is also a slang term for a woman. Hen, HEN or Hens may also refer to: Places Norway *Hen, Buskerud, a village in R ...

sì comes, fortune turns" ( BUC: ''sì-lài-ông-diōng''). As a result of these homophones, many Fuzhou people believe that eating sì may result in good fortune.

Folk rhyme

References

{{Dumplings Fuzhou Fujian cuisine Glutinous rice desserts Chinese rice dishes Chinese desserts Chinese dumplings Holiday foods Winter solstice