Spring Festival is around, good fortune abounds!
恭 喜 发 财
(GONG HAY FA CHOY -- Cantonese)
Chinese New Year Celebration (1/28 to 2/28)
2006 is the Year of the Dog. The Dog has a giving, compassionate personality. He offers kind words, support, and advice to friends and family. He is a listener,
always available to lend an ear or a shoulder to a friend in need. Therefore, this year is a good year to make new friends or care about your friends more attentively.
Chinese eat a variety of dishes to promote good fortune in the New Year festival.
Shrimp in Cantonese is ha which sounds like laughing. We eat shrimp to bring happiness.
Fish in Chinese sounds like yü, the Chinese character for surplus.
By eating half of a fish on New Year's Eve and saving the remainder for the next day,
families can transfer their surplus luck to the New Year.
Chicken symbolizes the phoenix: it is about being reborn and renewed.
If you are a vegetarian you can eat egg instead.
Lotus Seed in Chinese is lin zee, which sounds like a phrase that means
"you will have a sone every year"; to the Chinese, having a son is very important.
It could also mean "a child every year".
Cake in Chinese is gow means to raise up, have a piece of cake to improve your chance
for a promotion, or to get a good score on a test or in a competition.
During a banquet meal, we like to order 8 or 9 dishes. The number 8 means good business
and the number 9 means happy forever.
Dumpling (gao-zee): On New Year's Day we eat dumplings because it stands for 元宝 Yuan Bao (a gold ingot
used as money) and reunion. Grand parents put different denominations of money in dumplings.
If you eat a dumpling with a coin in it, it means you will be affluent in the future. Children should
eat some sweet dumplings so as to speak out some sweet words. Some people make offerings to the Gods
so as not to cause them to report unfavorably on your family to the Jade Emperor, the god who oversees
all the doings of the earthly people. Traditionally, the whole family should get together in the
New Year's Meal and make dumplings to promote a happy family reunion. Making dumpling is time consuming, but
the joy comes not from the food but from in the company of one another. So eat dumpling for an appetizer or
dessert in your New Year's meal.
Chinese Banquet Traditions
The Courses
The first course is an even-numbered selection of cold dishes, eight or ten are traditionally served.
After the cold course comes a showy soup such as shark’s fin soup or bird’s nest soup. The guests help
themselves to the dishes at a banquet, but the soup is served by the host, and much drinking and toasting
accompanies. Following the soup comes a decorative meat dish. More courses follow — shrimp, pork, s
callops and chicken. Between the courses, a variety of sweets are brought out. Roasted chicken or duck
is often served in the middle of the banquet. Traditionally, the final course is a whole fish, which is
placed on the table with its head pointed toward the guest of honor. Throughout the meal, the guests pay
elaborate compliments to the food. Enjoyment of the food offered is much more important than sparkling
dinner table conversation. At a banquet, the food itself is the medium communicating the host’s good
wishes and the joy of the celebration.
The Customs
At a banquet, rice is not treated as the center of the meal, but the respectful interaction between
the guest and host. In a dramatic reversal of everyday habit, banquets consist solely of special dishes.
The meat and vegetables that serve as side dishes at regular meals become the focus, and rice we call fan,
or grain, which is normally so important that every last grain must be consumed, is relegated to the very
end of the meal and guests need only to pick at the fan, indicating their supreme satisfaction. To eat
one’s rice at a banquet might hint that the host failed to provide enough food.
Alcohol is very rarely served at everyday meals, but it plays an important role at banquets. In fact,
a banquette is called a chiu-hsi, or “wine spread”. The host decides on one sort of alcoholic beverage,
either a wine or liquor, which will be served throughout the meal. Wine glasses are traditionally filled
at the start of each course. The banquet will probably be marked by guests challenging each other to
drinking games throughout the evening.
Dining Etiquette
A Chinese dinner host will not expect a visitor to know all of the traditions associated with a Chinese
meal, but a visitor who knows some of them will gain face and give face to his host.
The socially acceptable method for eating rice is to bring one’s bowl close to one’s mouth and quickly
scoop the rice into it with one’s chopsticks. This is difficult for the foreigner, so simple lifting
portions of rice to the mouth from the bowl held in the other hand is perfectly acceptable. Do not
attempt to eat rice from a bowl sitting on the table — the Chinese won’t.
If you find an uneven pair of chopsticks at your table setting it means you are going to miss a boat,
plane or train. Dropping chopsticks will inevitably bring bad luck, as will laying them across each
other.
A fish will never be turned over because of a traditional superstition and as a tribute to South China’s
fishing families — bad luck would ensue and a fishing boat would capsize if the fish were up-ended.
Fish is a symbol of a boat or ship. You can imagine a business as a ship, and you don’t want the ship
(or business) to sink do you?
During a banquet we lay a place for a guest who will never come. This is for an absent or deceased friend
of the host. During the banquet, you will see the host use the chopstick laid at that place to pick up a
little bit of each dish and put it on the plate, pretending that the person is present.
Some older habits have been known to make visitors uncomfortable when they are not used to fellow diners
slurping their soup, laying discarded bones on the tablecloth, and audibly making a meal of a meal.
Mealtime noises are considered sounds of culinary appreciation. The slurping of soup is also an
acceptable way of cooling it down so that you don’t burn your mouth.
It is impolite to eat the head of the fish. It should be left for the guest of honor as it is the most
nutritious part of the fish. The eyes and lips are valued delicacies offered to the senior lady present.
The guest of honor will usually be seated facing the door of entry, directly opposite the host. The next
most honored guest will be seated to the left of the gust of honor. If the host has any doubts about the
precedence for his guests, he will seat them on the basis of age.
Chinese Lantern Festival
Lovely Lanterns and Sweet Dumplings
The Lantern Festival or Yuanxiao Jie (元宵节) is a traditional
Chinese festival. It is celebrated on the 15th day of the first month of the Chinese New Year.
The festival marks the end of the celebrations of the Chinese New Year.
Chinese started to celebrate the Lantern Festival about 2000 years ago during the Han Dynasty
(206 BC – 221 AD). Like most other Chinese festivals, there is a story behind it. It is believed that
the festival has Taoist origins.
The Legend of the Lantern Festival’s Origin
In one legend, the Jade Emperor in Heaven was so angered at a town for killing his favorite goose that
he decided to destroy it with a storm of fire. However, a good-hearted fairy heard of this act of revenge
and warned the people of the town to light lanterns throughout the town on the appointed day. The
townsfolk did as they were told, and from the Heavens it looked as if the village was ablaze. Satisfied
that his goose had already been avenged, the Jade Emperor decided not to destroy the town. From that day
on, people celebrated the anniversary of their deliverance by carrying lanterns of different shapes and
colors through the streets on the first full moon of the year, providing a spectacular backdrop for lion,
dragon dances and fireworks.
Based on this old tradition, flower markets, restaurants, homes and parks are filled with colorful
lanterns in traditional designs. The lanterns have Chinese riddles, and people play games with the
lanterns.
Love by any other name…
This day also has another name: Chinese Valentines Day. Traditionally, this was the only day for girls
to go out for fun and have a chance to meet boys without going through a matchmaker. If they saw someone
they were interested in, they would have their parents contact the boy’s family.
There is also a sad side to the story, as they cannot get married if their families are not of the same
background. Some couples have tried eloping, but when they got caught they were dumped into the river in
a bamboo cage full of heavy stones.
Yuanxiao (glutinous rice ball) or Tangyuan (汤丸)
is a special food for the Lantern Festival. It is believed that Yuanxiao is named after a palace maid of
Emperor Wu Di (武帝) of the Han Dynasty. Yuanxiao is a kind of sweet dumpling made with sticky rice flour and
filled with a sweet stuffing. The dumpling is sticky, sweet and round in shape, symbolizing family unity,
completeness and happiness. The festival is named after the famous dumpling.
You can find Tangyuan in oriental food stores.
If you enjoy cooking, here is a recipe of Tangyuan for you.
Ingredients
4 1/2 cups (500 g) sticky rice flour
butter 7 oz (200 g)
sesame powder or (use peanut butter) 7 oz (200 g)
sugar 8 oz (250 g)
Methods
1. Mix the butter with sesame powder, sugar and tea together. You need to heat a little bit. Make small
balls about 0.3-0.4 oz (10 g) each.
2. Take 1/2 cup of sticky rice flour. Add water into the flour and make a flatten dough. Cook it in
boiled water and take out until done. Let it cool down. Then put it in the rest of the sticky rice flour.
Add water and knead until the dough is smooth.
3. Make the dough into small pieces about 0.3-0.4 oz (10 g) each. Make it like a ball using hands first
and then make a hole in the ball like a snail. Put the sesame ball into it and close it up.
4. Cook them in boiled water. Make sure to keep stirring in one direction while cooking. When they float
on the water, continue to boil for about one minute using less heat.
If you search for Chinese Lantern Festival you will find many references.
http://www.chinavoc.com/festivals/lantern.htm
http://www.sinica.edu.tw/tit/festivals/0296_Lantern.html
If you search for Chinese Valentine’s Day you will also find many references to a festival celebrated on
the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. This is known as Daughter’s Festival by the Chinese.
The following link is to a news story from Beijing regarding Chinese Lantern Festival and Valentine’s
Day:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-02/10/content_4163575.htm
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