Boyu Ran The Instructors ENG 101 02/17/2018 Dumplings and Home That date—February 16th 2018—is Chinese Lunar New Year. For celebrating Lunar New Year, As a food, dumplings are good choices to celebrate this festival. There is old story that tells about Zhang Zhongjing, who was the popular Chinese doctor that invented classic Chinese dumplings—the small pieces of lamb, peppers and herbal medicine were packed by thin dough, using clear water to boil—for thousands of years to save people from cold injury. The shape of Chinese dumplings looks like ears. Also, a widely-circulated tale describes that eating dumplings can recover people’s frozen ears and get rid of cold. Based on this story, dumplings should be cured people who got cold injury. However, why dumplings are worth so much for Chinese people in Chinese Lunar New Year? On yesterday, many Chinese people ate dumplings, while they watched Spring Festival Gala, especially for overseas students. For instance, Studying at Auburn University, I have not been back to China for one year. I missed my family and my country, China, especially in Spring Festival. In the old days, I was always my grandmother’s partner. When she made the dumplings in Chinese Lunar New Year, I felt very excited. The reason why was I have a certain probability to eat the coin in dumplings. If someone ate that coin, that would be represent he or she would be lucky, prosperous and good fortune in this New Year. Also, during that festival, my family members—parents, brother, sister and etc.—would not only come back to home to celebrate it, but they were for family reunion. Based on my experience, The meaning of dumplings for me is to miss my home. I have plenty of friends who are studying in America, Canada, Australia, and etc. The date of New Spring Festival was very close to midterm. Most of them were working on their exams, including me. My friends had not only one time to complain about no break during Chinese Spring Festival and no time to make dumplings. There was other friend called Leonard Chen who is studying at McGill University in Canada. As we know, Computer Science in McGill University is very hard for students to learn. He said He almost coded for his assignments, projects, and etc. in all days. When I asked him how to prepare Spring Festival, he said he had no idea about that because he had to work on codes every moment. He thought he would buy some frozen dumplings from Asian Supermarket. Also, I asked him what about family. He told me he missed his parents a lot. In Chines Lunar New Year, he decided to take video call via Wechat to his family. For these two friends, they will have Reading Week for a break. They decided to meet other classmates in our high school in Montreal.
This was last friend I interviewed. She named Violet who is studying at Southern Methodist University(SMU) in America. Her major is Game Design. In the meanwhile, Game Design in SMU was top 1 in 2017 The Princetion Review. She told me she had huge pressure and no time to celebrate Spring Festival. However, she said she would buy some frozen dumplings to eat and call her parents because she missed them a lot. I asked why she must eat dumplings in this festival. Was there any special meaning? She said dumplings were connected to home. Especially for Chinese overseas students, they cannot come back to home for celebrating Lunar New Year with their family. Almost of them were lonely to spend this festival.
For me, I bought raw materials, such as cabbage, ground pork, scallions, cilantro, ginger, etc., to prepare for pork dumplings. It was inconvenient to buy these stuffs because there was no public transportation on weekends. I had to walk to Walmart because I did not have a car. To be honest, this was my first time to make dumplings without my family. When I mixed them—ginger, ground pork, and etc., my roommate Bob wanted to help me for learning how to make dumplings. I asked him why he wanted to learn. He said he could cook for his mother. To be honest, making dumplings wrap was wasting a lot of times. In the meanwhile, Bob told me many stories about himself. For instance, he was in middle school at that time. He was first person who took glasses in his class. Based on this situation, he was jested by his classmates who called him “four eyes monster”. At that moment, he was so upset. He told his teacher; however, his teacher cannot help him to step out of the shadows. I was curious about what he did. He told me that he fought against these people who laughed at him. Nevertheless, he was loser in that “war”. When dumplings wrap was done, I told him my story about my grandma. I did not know there was cancer in her lungs. The first time to check her body was not huge problem. Also, she got better in that a few days. Then one day, she did not feel better. When I heard this bad news, I was shocked. She was sent to Intensive Care Unit(ICU) immediately. Two weeks went by and nothing good news from doctors. I believed that she was getting better because she knew I was still waiting for her dumplings in next Chinese Lunar New Year. On the fifteenth day, she did not make it. When I finished my story, Bob gave me a hug. After that, he told me how his father died. When his family and him knew his father got serious cancer, he did not believe it. However, his father accepted this reality. He decided to quit the job and accompanied with his son, Bob. Travelling a new country could help broaden people’s horizons and relax their mind, so his family would go to travel. But as they crossed the road, the unexpected things would happened. His father realized that a car went through red light to crash into them. Afterwards, he pushed away his son and wife. Unfortunately, the rescue was not valid. Why should we talk about these stuffs during making dumplings? I suddenly realized that why dumplings are so important. In fact, The process which make dumplings is the most important in Chinese Lunar New Year, because when family members come back to home, they would talk to each other what they did and how they missed home during making dumplings, just like us. Many members in their own family have gone out to work for at least one year. They need to reunite with their family. However, dumplings as a medium expressed homesickness. Why dumplings are so important for Chinese people in Lunar New Year? Dumplings are connecting to home. When my roommate, Bob, and I made the dumplings at home, we told own stories for each other. Based on our stories, we missed home a lot. At the same time, I did three interviews about this question. All of these three friend thought that eating dumplings could miss home. As a medium, dumplings are truly connected to home, especially for Chinese oversea students who cannot come back to home in Lunar New Year.