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hehe ,it looks nice . in the UK, I went to Chinese church ,many Chinese people in the church made damplings to celebrate Chinese New year .

Hie Xiaowei.Happy Lunar New Year!That dumplings look very tasty.You seem to have a fine culinary skills. What did you fill those dumplings with?I'll make a wild guess,herbs or peas.

Hi Xiaowei

I am new in this site, i have read you all blogs. This blog is also as interesting as all blogs. I haven't seen Dragon dance in real life,
but according to your photograph if i will watching Dragon dance i might be astonished. It is very traditional and about this dumplings, i think it called Momos Dish too, isn't it?


Mansi

Chinese make dumpling at Lanar New Year's day! We Korean serve rice-cake soup as meaning the acception of New Year (you're not suppose to get old until eating this soup) so all this day often end up to have meal with this festive dishes. But I'm never fed up with this food because the recipe and taste is different from region even each town like dumpling has a lot of kind.

Hi, Xiaowei!

Have happy Lunar New Year! Does it mean that Chinese calendar is according to the moon? Do you believe in Chinese horoscope? What do you wish for the Year of Dragon?
Thank you for new post. I have never seen these kind of celebrations. People in Asia like wearing colourful clothes, don't they? Your blogs are so interesting, because open a new and unknown world for me.

Otherwise it's a good day for me, because it's snowing heavily in Hungary, as I wanted to.

Have nice days, Virag

Hi Xiaowei.Happy Lunar New Year!
interesting like always!
u forgot to tell us about the ingrediants and taste of it

Hi, Xiawei!
First of all: I want to congratulate you on writting so delicious words. I say delicious because it is as if your words would be eaten. They transmit coulours, smells, shapes, feelings... IAnd it is all more remarkable if you consider English is neither your mother tongue or ours. I haven't taken part in the blog until now because you get me speechless.

Before yesterday, my children didn´t have a lot of homeworks, so we spent a while on the net. We visited the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ website for children to learn English and there are some information and any game about the Chinese New Year. And some information is different from yours. For example: it was said people wore new red clothes, no pink. And it was speaken about oranges and tangerines for the hosts, about little red envelopes with money for the children and about lanterns carried by the children in parades. Are there different traditions for different areas?
Best whishes for your New Year.

Hi Xiawei,

Happy new year, hope you enjoyed celebrating New Year away from home. It is not easy when you are away from home on special occasions like this. Although saying that, we also come to realise the importance of our traditions when away from home.

In Ireland we have an ethnic minority community centre and they try to organise events all year around in relation to the traditions of the dominant ethnic minority groups in the area. Last year I went to an event celebrating Chinese new year and I really enjoyed it. I saw the dragon dance for the first time, it was amazing.

I enjoyed reading your comment on celebrating New Year traditionally. I must say that the most important thing in celebrating such events is spending quality time with family. I think these are the only times bringing family members together.

Finally, the dumplings in the picture look very tasty but at the same time there is probably a lot of effort involved in making this dish as you will have to make the filling, dough and assembling it all together. Although saying that, I would love to have the recipe to try it out, possibly over the weekend sometime when I have a lot of time on my hands.

Have a nice weekend.

Varisha

Hi Xiaowei,

Wow, the dumplings look yummy. I wonder what kind of stuffs were in the dough. Dumpling is one of my favorite foods, but I don't cook that often because it takes time to make and to be honest, the results are not that satisfying. ^^ There are many Chinese restaurants around my apartment. I prefer to go there and have some delicious Chinese foods. Koreans are familiar with Chinese foods and have them quite often. By the way I guess that you are a good cook.

The Lunar New Year memory of your younger days reminded me of my own ones.
I liked having Lunar New Year when I was young. The family gathering, the various foods that prepared for performing ancestral rites, the cash we used to get from my parents and grand parents after bowing, most of all the festive mood.....
But after being an adult, my feeling about this festivity has slightly changed. Anyway, things not always stay as the way they were. I have to admit the change.

Thank you very much for this reminiscent posting. I enjoyed to read it.

Xiaowei.
It is the "baoz" which seem to be very delicious !
All of my Chinese friends are young housewives and mothers of children.
They have to take supper for a short time ,about fifteen minutes ,at five o'clock so that their jobs continue till eight o'clock of night.
And that they have already spent their resting hour oveying the Labor Standards Law during the day.

Now! Hold a party!
I always try to warm up everyday-supper with playing my joke.
Their dishes are spreaded without stopping on the table.
"Please eat!!" chi ba chi ba
So saying ,they present to me various foods using chopsticks well as you.
I love very much this ordinary and peaceful scene.

Hi,

I always wondering what does mean red colour in your culture? You like to surround this colour, the clothes, the flowers everything is red... I have a request to you... Could you send us a receipt for dumplings, it looks very mouthwatering, especially shapes are quite interesting.... Reading your blog I have chance to know your country, it's very exciting. I have heard that is a place large social differences. Probably often all family hard work in order to one person can get the education, is that true?

PS.

From above I'm sorry for my curiosity....

Regards,
Majka

Hi Seva,

I filled lettuce and basa fillet (a kind of Aussie fish) along with chicken mince in. It's rather a wild mixture, coz the traditional ingredient like Chinese leek and shrimp are beyond my reach that day. Ha, I guess it should taste nice as well if we fill some herbs in.

Hi mansi,

A WARM WELCOME and thanks for your comment. I’m not true if dumplings is called Monos Dish in English as well, I googled it but don't find the answer. Anyway we call it "jiao zi" in Chinese :)

Hello Virag,

Thank you very much for the lunar new year blessing! Is it a beautiful winter in Hungary at the moment?

Your questions are all interesting. Indeed the Lunar Chinese calendar is according to the moon, and the older generations of Chinese always celebrate their birthdays according to the lunar calendar. As the younger generation some of us celebrate their birthday twice a year - both according to sun calendar and moon calender, they usually celebrate their birthday of sun calendar with friends, and the other one with families. I'm always jealous of these people coz my sun calendar birthday fell on winter holidays when I was at school and most of my friends were miles away from me during that time.

As to the Chinese horoscope, if you don't ask the question I'll always take it naturally to a kind of symbol. But at the moment I'm thinks they do have some influence on me. For example I unconsciously tend to approach those people born in the year of dog and pig, coz i'm a tiger and is said to be able to get along better with them (sometimes i find indeed it is...somewhat...) and my wishes...?quite a lot%#@%...hoohoooo!

When I first came to Aussie I'm not used to see people most in black and grey and dark colour, i like clothes with patterns, but now i'm getting used to aussie style and can appreciate the beauty of simplification.

Hi rainyman,

Thanks for your comment!

The dumplings I made here are a bit different from the traditional ones I made at home. I filled them with fish minces, chicken minces and some veges, which made them taste quite light.

Hi narrosgirl,

Thanks for your comment!

All the information you mentioned are true and correct, they are all the tradition for Lunar New Year in my country. The only thing is sometimes we just skive off from them a little bit. For example the red clothes, we sometimes just wear a red vest or even a pair of red socks instead.
As to the oranges and tangerines, we ate them a lot in this festival season, I guess that's because they are the most accessible fruits national-wide in winter, even in the freezing place like my home city.

All the best!

Xiaowei

Hi Varisha,

Nice to hear from you again and thanks for the comment! I'm glad you enjoy the dragon dance and the Lunar New Year as well. And you wrote the very words I felt on Lunar New Year Eve: we only realise the importance of our traditions when away from home.

I bought the dumpling skin from the supermarket and it saved me a lot of energy. And the meat minces in the supermarket as well- a good thing to help me skive off from chopping meat.

I'll put a recipe later in the comment, it's my way of making dumplings, hope you enjoy it! It's a healthy dish:)

Have a nice day!

Xiaowei

Hi bomsan,

Thanks for all your comments in January and I learnt a lot from them, both encouragement and wisdom. Thanks indeed!

Making dumplings here is much easier than at home, coz almost everything is semi-finished. I like it, hoohooo!
I agree with you that tradition festival is changing. Some traditional custom is fading out of our life, before I often think it's a good thing since we don't have to follow those overeducated formalities, but I'm beginning to realize it's a shame to lose them as they always represent cultural identities.

All the best!

Xiaowei

Hi kishino,

Thanks for sharing the your experience about the Chinese food, do you like it? It sounds really nice that you have a lot of friends who are good are cooking.

Hi Majka,

Thanks for your comment, and the good questions as well. Talking about red, although Chinese don't use this color as you imagine that often in real life, it is a symbol color in traditional Chinese festivals all the time. According to some sayings that's because China has long been an agricultural country, people worship red as the color of sun which is vital to the living. So in Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) people wear red and decorating home in red, in the hope of having a harvest and a happy life throughout the year.

For the social wealth gap, indeed it exists and is large in China, as the cases in many other countries around the current world. A large share of budget for ordinary families is taken by education expenses - a huger amount of them is swallowed by high-charged extra-extra classes. If there's not such a tough competition for higher education entrance, the investment on education for every household could move on in a more healthy way in my country. That's my understanding.

I've been really thinking hard on your questions..Wooo! Anyway, take care and all the best!

Xiaowei