Jiao zi(饺子) is also called Geng sui Jiaozi“更岁交子”, which originally means the moment that time change from the last year to the new year. In this sense jiaozi is a food that is specially eaten at the midnight in the eve of the spring festival.

The most favorite thing for a Chinese woman to do is to make dumpling for the family members and the friends in the eve of spring festival. When different vegetables and meats are chopped into tiny pieces, the water inside vegetables is squeezed out, the dried vegetables are mingled together with different seasonings, it seems that all the tastes oft he life are narrated by this woman. The chasm between dream and reality that had been thought impossible to be connected with each other, the suppressive feeling that could not find any outlet in reality, the heartbroken hurt that had thought not to be cured all one’s life……..all are grinded down, crumbled up and filtered out, only the substantial parts that we have experienced are always lingered in our mind. We are dying to be reunited with the actors who had shared all these stories, and keen to doing what we had done together in the past, and then renew and go further our dreams together ……though the process to prepare the filling of dumpling is boring and dull (humdrum anduninteresting), trivial and miscellaneous (overloaded). but when the fillings and dough are prepared, Chinese woman sits down, kneads the dough thoroughly,cut and roll them as thin as possible, then take the fillings, make the dumpling……it is leisurely and comfortable. ------the reuniting that is bound to come, and the efforts at all costs to achieve this reuniting, make the soul of the Chinese woman into peace among this annoyed temporal world. While time is ready for a new year in the middle night, the footsteps of the family members who are wandering far away from family are closer and closer……the water is boiled in the oven, the dumplings are arrayed and prepared to be boiled in the water likes oldiers to prepare for a war, hope, dream and love as well as the strengthen to support these are all sowed into the coming of new year from the dumplings.

The first time I sensed this profound meaning of the dumplings, I should be 25 or 26 years old. It is the age for marriage, but no one proposed to me……from 17 to 23 years old, I even needed not turn a corner in the road that I went through to find love, Love would find me even if I did not make effort to look for them. But at that time I was too young to know how I should cherish a truly feeling, love was always withered as the hardships of life were piled together. But after 23 years old, all the men who I wanted to establish a further relationships already became the husbands ofthe others. The life without love was voider and voider, I hence felt anxious and panic. I was afraid that I would be lonely in my whole life……in this mood,I met a boy who just lost his girlfriend. His lovelorn mien aroused mesomething, but even myself don’t know what’s that. I did not know what he felt about me. I could not say anything to him. I just stayed among his friends and watched over him……Spring festival came at that moment, I had to leave him to reunite with my parents. The distance between me and him, the feeling that had no anchorage to stay, the youthfulness that was leaving far and far……all thesea roused the nameless fear of the future……in this mood, I began to make the dumpling for the coming of new year. It occurred to me that all Chinese were making dumpling at that moment, the same expectation was injected into the future, even if the boy in my dream was so far from me that cannot be available at hand, maybe he felt nothing on me, he might have the similar aspiration that future will be full of friendships and loves……it was so nice that these were empathy that still could connect us……maybe from that eve of the spring festival I began to love making dumpling with friends.

For the most Chinese children, probably they have already leaned on the board to make dumpling with their mothers when they even could not toddle. They make various dumplings just as they handle their future by using their imagination that grow-ups have lost. I have no impression that I had made dumpling by my own in my childhood. My parents did not allow me to waste food. The first memory that I made dumpling, it was in a dormitory party when I was an undergraduate student in a university. We were so young that we could try whatever we wanted to try. Everyone was making effort to plant his own hopes in the dumplings no matter whether he had made dumpling or not, he is confident or not. We were in great hurry and bustle with seven hands and eight feet, some of us made some special marks in the dumplings they made to show off their technics of making dumpling. Some of us used the special marks so that they could eat the dumpling made by themselves. The shapes of dumpling were hence of wide variety. Some dumplings were already broken before they were boiled. I doubt if it was eatable after they were taken out from the wolk. But surprisingly,the dumplings were still delicious. Then we dashed up and eaten them up in one minute, all the selfish calculations were thrown/blown/forgetten into the sky.

Later on, I tried to make different dumplings. I tried to make the local style of dumplings that are convex both sides when I got a job in a place and then settled down there. Having Practiced for a long time, the shapes of dumpling I made look better and better.It becomes my favorite shape of dumpling.

Later on, I studied abroad and invited some foreigners to make dumpling together. the feeling when I preparing dumpling and waiting for the coming of them was the totally same as that I was waiting for the family members to return home after a long journey......no matter how different we are, as human  being, our feelings by nature are same. The friendship,love and expectation that are resided in our hearts can span the boundaries between human spacies and nationalities to reunite all humanbeing as a family.

The tastes of dumpling are not decided by the shapes of dumplings, but decided by the materials we use and by the expectations we inject into the dumplings. However,whatever mood we are at the beginning, we all can tolerate all struggles and differences in the past,we will do something to fulfill our expectations which can connect ourselves from the past to the future with more and more confident.