About the origin of Lidong, at first appeared in the canonical book of "The Seventy-two Waiting Periods of the Moon Order", which says: "Lidong, build the beginning also." It also says: "Winter, the end is also, the collection of all things." It means that at the beginning of winter, all crops have been harvested and stored up, which represents not only the coming of winter, but also the end of crops and hibernation of animals.

Since winter is the season of crop harvesting and animal hibernation, it also means that the winter grass and trees have withered, and everything has entered hibernation, waiting for the arrival of spring, and then bursting into life again.

In ancient times, people divided the first winter into three, thus indicating the official arrival of winter.

The first is when the water starts to freeze: this means that the water has started to freeze during the season.

The second season is the beginning of the freezing of the earth: it means that the land starts to freeze during the season.

Third weather, the pheasant becomes a mirage in the water: the pheasant here generally refers to large birds like pheasants, and the mirage in it refers to large clams, indicating that once the festival season arrives, large birds like pheasants are seldom seen, but at this time large clams can be seen on the seashore frequently, so it is thought that pheasants become large clams after entering into the water.

Expanded:

It is said that during the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhang Zhongjing passed through Dongguan in Nanyang on his way back to his hometown, and saw that the locals were all yellow and skinny, freezing to death, so he set up a medical hut to cook some dumplings for everyone.

At first, it was not called dumplings, but because the food was like ears, people ate it and the frozen ears were cured, so people called it "Jiao Er", and then it gradually became dumplings, and after that, people ate dumplings in the winter season, and after eating dumplings, the ears would not be frozen again.