Happy Chinese New Year's!

 

February 3 is the start of the Chinese Year of the Rabbit.  I love Chinese New Year's -- and as a rabbit, I'm especially happy.

Why does this yangguizi (Mandarin for foreign devil) love a Chinese holiday so much?  

1. It's a great excuse to make and eat jiaozi --little filled pastries that are either boiled or pan-fried -- they are more commonly called wontons (which is the Cantonese word for them) and my Korean mother-in-law calls them mandoo.  Same concept, same deliciousness.
2. I can put out all the decorations that I bought 3 years ago when I did henna at a Vietnamese Tet Festival in Balboa Park.  The banners and lanterns are so festive, it's a shame to hide them in the closet for years.
3. I am not a fan of the timing of the Western New Year.  It arrives in the dead of winter, usually while I'm on a long airplane ride home from a trip back East to visit relatives.  I am feeling residual stress from Christmas, and stress about making a proper New Year's dinner, and then there's jet lag, etc. I just am in no shape to assess my life and make pertinent goals on January 1 (although I continue to try).

But Chinese New Year's follows the lunar calendar and arrives later in the year and on different days which gives it a sort of release from the rigidity of JANUARY 1.  (Also, it's late enough that if my holiday round-up letters haven't yet been mailed, I can mail them within the 15 days of the New Year celebration and feel no guilt. )

I find this is the perfect time for a new start.  I've had some time to mull over last year's successes and target some items for change.  More importantly, I have had a trial run at working on resolutions so I know which ones are going to stick and which ones aren't worth my energy.

I know goal-setting is not a part of the Chinese celebration: their focus is on family, sweeping out the old influences of the previous year, and feasting.  Nobody feasts like the Chinese!!  I am getting hungry now just remembering feasts of my college days in China....I may need to have some leftover jiaozi for lunch... but renewing my goals and refining them is what works for me, and the feasting part is pretty good, too.

Recipe for Jiaozi
1 cup ground pork
1 TB soy sauce
1 TB Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
3 TB sesame oil
1/2 green onion, finely minced
1 1/2 cups finely shredded Nappa cabbage
4 tablespoons shredded bamboo shoots (opt)
1 inch of fresh ginger, grated
4-6 cloves garlic, peeled and finely minced
Round wrappers found in the refrigerated section of the grocery store near the egg roll wrappers.  Or you can use square pieces of dough called wonton wrappers -- that is the essential difference between jiaozi and hundun aka wontons -- the shape of the wrapper and the method of wrapping.
Here is a YouTube video for round wrappers -- notice the party atmosphere -- when I studied in China, I went to many parties where the focal point was making and eating jiaozi. And here is a YouTube video for folding square wontons.

Have a great New Year with much feasting and joy!