According to legend, Zhang Zhongjing, a doctor in Nanyang, was originally a medical officer, and it was a snowy winter when he retired from his old age. He saw the villagers in Nanyang suffering from cold and hunger, and many people's ears were frozen and rotten. So he asked his disciples to set up a medical shed in Guandong, Nanyang, put mutton, peppers and some cold-dispelling herbs in a pot and cooked them, fished them out and chopped them up, kneaded them into ears with a leather bag, then put them down and cooked them in a pot, and made them into "cold-dispelling and ear-correcting soup" for the villagers to eat. After the villagers took the food, their frozen ears were cured. Later, on the winter solstice, people imitated this kind of "pinching ears" to eat, saying that eating jiaozi on the winter solstice did not freeze people.
Winter Solstice, also known as Solstice, Winter Festival, Sub-Year, etc., has both natural and humanistic connotations. It is not only an important solar term among the 24 solar terms, but also a traditional folk festival of ancestor worship in China. The winter solstice is one of the four seasons and eight festivals, which is regarded as a big holiday in winter. In ancient times, there was a saying that the winter solstice was as big as a year. The custom of winter solstice is different in content or detail because of different regions. In southern China, there is the custom of offering sacrifices to ancestors and feasting on the winter solstice. In the northern part of China, it is a custom to eat jiaozi every winter solstice.