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Published: February 18th 2007
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New Year Jiaozi! Yum!
(All photos on this entry are from Sen, because I was lazy and didn't take my camera.) Goodbye Year of the Dog! Hello Year of the Pig! And not just any ol' pig - this is the Year of the Golden Pig. Coming around once every 60 years, the Year of the Golden Pig is the most auspicious year for having children. Supposedly children born during this year will be very lucky and successful in life. (Conveniently, the year of the dog, which was last year, was an auspicious year to get married.) So let's see...take the Year of the Golden Pig and add that to China's one-child policy and you get...every woman in China wanting to have a baby this year. Seriously, there are pregnant women everywhere! Statistics show that condom sales are down and fertility clinic business is up. Hospitals are developing plans to deal with all these upcoming births. The Year of the Golden Dragon (2000) was also an auspicious year for children (although not as auspicious as this year) and last year the education system was scrambling around trying to find room for all those Golden Dragon kids. Predictions say that it will be even worse when Golden Pig kids enter school. (Mental note: Become a Chinese school teacher - they're going to be
Darcy, me, and Maya
Maya was the hostess with the mostest in demand in the upcoming years.) Basically, these Golden Pig babies are going to spend their entire lives competing against each other.
But, that was of no concern to us last night as we rang in the Year of the Golden Pig in grand foreigners-living-in-China style. We gathered at Maya and Nolan's place for a pot-luck and jiaozi dinner. Jiaozi are Chinese dumplings - sort of like tortellini, but with various vegetables, egg, or meat inside instead of cheese. (Last night we had two kinds - pork with cabbage and egg with chives.) Making jiaozi as a family is a Chinese New Year tradition. Someone (usually mom or grandma, I believe) makes the filling and the skins and then the whole family sits around the table filling the dumplings and sealing them so they look pretty. Then the jiaozi are boiled, steamed, or fried and then they are eaten. Maya convinced the neighborhood jiaozi restaurant to make the filling and skins for us and everything was ready when we arrived. We all sat on the floor around the coffee tables (there were 20 of us, so we had to improvise to make enough room) and began the Filling of
Nolan, the host
He was excited about the New Year the Jiaozi. Some people had more experience than others and so the beauty of the end result varied - but they tasted delicious (which is more important) and everyone had a fabulous time!
After dinner we watched the Borat movie. Not exactly a traditional Chinese activity, but it was fun! It's definitely a movie best watched with a large group of friends. After the movie we went out on the street and bought some illegal fireworks and sparklers and set them off in plain sight on the sidewalk. It was a good time. People all over the city were doing the same thing. It's actually quite interesting to see fireworks go off in the midst of skyscrapers and apartment buildings. People shoot bottle rockets out their 20th-floor apartment window or gain access to the building's roof and shoot things off from there. But most people just set them off from the sidewalk - a bit dangerous and a lot illegal. I've decided that the worst job in all of China on the New Year must be that of an on-duty policeman. They roam the city in packs of ten, and when they see fireworks going off, they run to
Making jiaozi for 20
Our jiaozi assembly line the spot, confiscate the contraband, and then rush off to the next block where someone else is having fun with fireworks. What really sucks about this job is that everyone knows the system, so someone on the west block will set off some fireworks, and while the police are confiscating their goods, someone in the east block will set some off. Then, after the police run off to the east, the people in the east block will pull out their hidden stash and set off some more - thus causing the police to run back and forth all night, ruining everyone's fun and falling deeper and deeper into a foul mood because where they really want to be is at home, setting off some illegal fireworks with their kids. We tried crying when they took away our fireworks, but it didn't stop them. Luckily, by that time it was already past midnight.
We ended the night at UBar, one of the local dance clubs. We didn't stay long, as everyone was tired and full of jiaozi. It was time to say goodnight and "Xin nian kuai le!" (Happy New Year!)
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