Jan 22nd, 2023 Sunday Cloudy
Today (by date) is the Chinese New Year, also known as the lunar new year.
My parents have been asking about my plan since a month ago. “You should do something special to celebrate it.” they said. After all, this is part of my heritage culture.
I also want to celebrate, but the problem is, the spring semester is starting next week, so I should take advantage of the remaining couple of winter break days to rest and relax. Organizing a party/gathering of any kind, while perhaps super fun, is certainly not relaxing.
In addition, I live in a community with a negligible percentage of Chinese people, so there is little festive atmosphere in the air.
“Let’s just make dumplings.” My husband suggested. “Everyone loves dumplings, right?”
Right, except that making dumplings from scratch (including creating the dough for handmade wrappers, mixing the stuffing, and wrapping hundreds of dumplings) is a lot of work. Maybe a good idea to enlist the help of interested friends?
Of course, this is a golden opportunity to have a large party – friends with or without Chinese culture connections may be equally happy to get an invitation. However, my husband is the only person who can make quality wrappers (he learned it from my dad 😛 ), so that limits the number of helping hands we need for wrapping the dumplings.
In the end, we settled for a small gathering with three other friends. They brought a variety of snacks to share (homemade taiyaki, Japanese style assorted roasted nuts, dried mango), none of them Chinese – I honestly do not care. Even in a Chinese celebration event of Chinese New Year in China, the snacks served are usually not limited to “authentic Chinese”. Fruits (dried or fresh), nuts, confectioneries and snacks from all of the world are fair game.
Altogether, we made 214 dumplings – some were a little over-filled, and some had patches on them 😛 It took about three hours while we also chatted about everything from public education to astrophysics, from heating bills to inheritance laws. And we devoured over 100 dumplings 😛
Frankly speaking, other than the dumpling making process itself, the gathering did not involve many Chinese elements, nor was there much discussion about Chinese culture. Nevertheless, everyone had a great time connecting (and arguing) with friends and enjoying the fruits of one’s labor. The spirit of Chinese New Year remained the same: reunion around good food. That is all that matters.
Like the containers we used for the wrapped dumplings (the round ones made of reeds are the traditional vessel for storing dumplings; the rectangular baking pans with parchment paper are the make-dos as the round ones filled up quickly), we adapt to the environment, finding creative ways to make things work, while retaining the essence of our heritage, be it “working hard”, “be nice to others”, or “be independent and self-sufficient”. The form of a certain “culture” may change, but the soul stays.
Happy Chinese New Year!