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

 The most favorite thing for a Chinese woman to do is to make dumplings for her family members and friends on the eve of the spring festival. When different vegetables and meats are chopped into tiny pieces, the water inside the vegetables is squeezed out. Then the dried vegetables are mingled together with different seasonings, and it seems that all the tastes of life are narrated by this woman. The chasm between dream and reality which she had thought impossible to bridge, the suppressed feeling that could not find an outlet in reality, the hurt and the heartbreak which she thought would not never be cured in her lifetime……..all are ground down,crumbled up and filtered out, only the substantial parts that she has experienced linger always in her mind.

she is dying to be reunited with the actors who have shared her stories, and keen to continue doing what she had done in the past, and then renew and pursue her dreams together with them ……Although preparing the fillings for the dumplings is boring and dull,humdrum and uninteresting, trivial and miscellaneous…… when the filling and the rough lump of dough are ready, the Chinese woman sits down, kneads the dough thoroughly, cuts it into little balls and then rolls them as thin as possible. She then takes the fillings and makes the dumpling by putting the fillings into the thin circles of dough and uniting and squeezing them together into shape with her finger tips. It is leisurely and comfortable - the reuniting that is bound to come, and the efforts at all cost to achieve this reuniting, bring peace to the soul of the Chinese woman amidst this angry temporal world. While the time is approaching for new year in the middle of the night, the footsteps of the family members who have wandered far away from their family come closer and closer……the water is boiling on the stove, the dumplings are arrayed and prepared to be boiled in the water like soldiers preparing for a war: hopes,dreams and love, as well as the power to realize these, are all brought together with the coming of the new year… by the dumplings.

 The first time I sensed this profound meaning of the dumplings, I was probably 25 or 26 years old. It is the age for marriage, but no one proposed to me……from 17 to 23 years of age, I could not turn a corner in the road without finding love. Love would find me even when I made no effort to look for it. But at that time I was too young to know how to cherish true feelings, and so love soon withered as the hardships of life piled up. But after 23, all the men with whom I wanted to establish a relationship had already become the husbands of others. Life without love was emptier and emptier, I felt anxious and panic in the void. I was afraid that I would be lonely my whole life……in this mood, I met a boy who just lost his girlfriend. His lovelorn mien aroused something in me. But I could not understand what it was. I could do nothing but stay among his friends and watch him……The Spring Festival came at that moment, and I had to leave him to reunite with my parents. The distance between us, the feeling that had no anchorage to stay, the youthfulness that was leaving me little by little……all this aroused a nameless fear of the future……In this mood, I began to make dumplings for the coming of the new year. It occurred to me that all Chinese were making dumplings at that moment,the same expectation injected into the future. Even if the boy of my dream was so far from me that Icould not reach out for him. maybe he felt nothing for me, he might have a similar aspiration that his future would be full of friendships and loves……it was so nice that there was empathy, and feelings that could still connect us……maybe it was from that eve of the Spring Festival that I began to love making dumplings with friends.

 But this romance wast transitory: we broke up soon because of an insurmountable barrier. A few months later, on a blind date, I met the boy who was to become my husband. The first food we made together was dumplings. At that time, my technique was really bad. Most of the dumplings were broken. However, he picked out all the broken dumplings for his bowl and left the unbroken dumplings to me. I suddenly realized that this man would give me no grievance, no matter what kinds of disaster would come to my life……Indeed I ran harum-scarum all over the world without considering what kind of difficulties I might meet. I am often black and blue. He is always ready to sacrifice everything to save me and refresh me so that I can pursue my dream again, even if he did not have enough courage to follow me……probably that is the reason that we still keep our marriage even if we live separately a thousand miles away from each other for more than 10 years.

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

 Since then, I experimented with different dumplings. When I got a job and settled down, I tried to make the local style of dumplings that are concave on both sides. Having practised for a long time, the shapes of dumpling I make look better and better. It has become my favourite shape of dumplings.

Later on, I studied abroad and invited some foreigners to make dumplings together. The feeling when I was preparing dumpling and waiting for them to come was the same as when I was waiting for the family members to return home after a long journey......no matter how different we are, as human beings, our feelings by nature are the same. Friendship, love and expectation that resided in our hearts can span the boundaries between human races and nationalities to reunite all human beings 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 moods we are in at the beginning, making dumplings help us to endure and tolerate all struggles and differences from the past. We hence come together to take action to fulfill our dream. All these connect our past to our future with more and more confidence.