More than 4,000 Beijingers and visitors queued up on Tuesday in the chilly wind for a bowl of steaming porridge served by monks at a lamasery in the capital to observe China's traditional porridge serving day.

Thirty giant caldrons of "Laba Porridge", which is made from dozens of ingredients, were served in the Yonghe Lamasery in north Beijing on the Laba Festival today.

"It only takes 10 minutes for one caldron of porridge to be given away because people are so enthusiastic about the tradition," said a monk.

"I queue up here every year to get a bowl of Laba porridge. It has become an annual routine for me," said a person in the queue.

The tradition of drinking the porridge, which is cooked with fresh paddy and fruits on the Laba Festival, is observed throughout China every year.

Millions of Chinese housewives get up early to toil through the day to prepare sundry ingredients to make the treat.

"I would bother to keep myself fully occupied today because a bowl of Laba porridge would not only bring luck and prosperity, but also connect the whole family," said Yu Li, a 72-year-old living in Beijing.

"I want to observe the tradition, just as I have been doing since my childhood," she said.

But the young generation in China seem to be too busy to maintain the tradition.

"It will be too time-consuming to make the Laba porridge and I don't have time to queue in Yonghe Lamasery. I just treat today as an ordinary day," said a local journalist surnamed Li.

The Laba Festival is regarded as a prelude to the Spring Festival, or Chinese Lunar New Year, the most important occasion of family reunion, which falls on Feb. 7 this year.

Legend has it that when Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, fell unconscious from hunger and exhaustion during his journey to find virtue, he was saved by a passing shepherdess who fed him porridge.

The gesture saved Sakyamuni who then went on to become Buddha on the eighth day of the 12 lunar month which falls on Friday this year. Laba literally means the eighth day of 12th lunar month.

The ancient Yonghe Lamasery used to serve porridge to the royal family, as well as to Buddhists and the poor.

The traditional recipe of porridge includes a mixture of different types of rice, millet, chestnuts, red jujubes, lotus seeds, red beans and other ingredients, including sugar.

(Xinhua News Agency January 16, 2008)