Dumplings (餃子)
文章日期:2011年1月27日

【明報專訊】In the last issue of "Now and Then" we talked about the chunyun (春運) period, which is a period round Lunar New Year when people who are away from home in college or earning money travel back home to be reunited with their families. People try to get home before Lunar New Year's Eve because it is a tradition to have family reunion dinners (團年飯) in the evening of that day.

Dishes served at a family reunion dinner are supposed to bring good luck. For example, dried oyster with black moss (髮菜蠔豉) sounds like fa cai hao shi (發財好市), which means making a lot of money and doing a lot of business. Another New Year dish is dumplings, in which people used to put a few coins, which symbolise wealth. Now people rarely put coins into dumplings, but the tradition of having dumplings at family reunion dinners is strictly adhered to.