Laowai Supper Club: 新年快乐 Celebrating Chinese New Year

I love the ritual of Chinese New Year. I love how it is a time for reflection and cleansing (both physically and metaphorically) for the year ahead. I love how families get together over vast meals steeped in tradition.
And yet, in China, I never actually celebrated Chinese New Year.

I can now look back and say that when I spent my two years in China I was young and naïve about all the amazing things I could have experienced and enjoyed. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy and experience a lot. A hell of a lot. But there were still so many things that I now look back on a wish that I had made the most of.

I wish that I had taken up my ex’s mum when she offered to show me around the Chinese kitchen and show me how to cook (this will always go down as one of my biggest regrets, I would now kill for a few days in the kitchen in China with someone who could teach me to do all those things that you can’t really learn over the internet.

But I also wish that I’d experienced Chinese New Year in China. I don’t wish that I hadn’t done that amazing trip to Cambodia over the two weeks holiday that we got from work, but I just wish that I could have done both.
I did get to experience some bits of Chinese New Year. I went to a family meal where I played with the baby of the family because his 3 year olds mandarin was sort of en par with mine. I should have been paying attention to the traditions that were going on around me. I went to the park and let off lanterns on the last day of the Chinese New Year celebrations. I should have been less concerned about getting the perfect instagram photo. But, I thought I had time. At that point I had convinced myself that I would have a lifetime of Chinese New Years to enjoy and understand, but by the time Chinese New Year rolled round again I was back in the UK.

But however little I did experience, I managed to pick up some traditions from the festive period. I know about the dumplings at midnight on New Years Eve, I’ve heard the reams of firecrackers set off in the streets over the festive period, I know about the longevity noodles (also good for Birthdays).

It is these traditions that I have heard of and love that I wanted to pass on over my Chinese New Year edition of the Laowai Supper Club. Because I am not only obsessed with the food but also the culture and history, I printed up a little introduction to Chinese New Year traditions on the back of the menu to give a little bit of context – I think that it is so important to understand the why of food celebrations, and not just indulge in all the amazing flavours.

So while it is still Chinese New Year, here are the very small, and very limited nuggets of knowledge that I have to pass on.

Special Foods – A lot of food eaten during the 16 days of the Chinese New Year festival has a symbolic meaning and is considered lucky, either because of how it looks or because of homonyms in the Chinese language.

Fish – for increasing prosperity

The mandarin word for fish, 鱼 yú, sounds like the mandarin word for surplus, 余 yú. Chinese people want to have a surplus at the end of the year, because they think that that means they will be able to make more in the next year. But how the fish is eaten is also important, here are some rules;

The head must face the guest or honour or most distinguished guest

The person who faces the fishes head must eat from the fish first

The two people facing the head and tail of the fish should drink together for good luck and prosperity

Once one side of the fish is finished the bones should be removed in one piece to expose the fillet underneath, never flip a fish over. If you do that then a fisherman’s boat will flip over at sea

Lucky saying: 年年有余 nián nián yǒu yú – May you always have more than you need

Dumplings – for wealth

The word for dumplings, 饺子 jiǎo zi sounds the same as 交子jiāo zi, which means the changing of the years. The shape of dumplings looks kind of like Chinese ingots. The more dumplings you eat during the New Year celebrations, the more money you will make in the New Year.
There is one dumpling with a coin in it, whoever gets the coin will become wealthy.
Dumplings should be arranged in lines instead of a circle, circles of dumplings mean that the guest’s lives will go round and round in circles, never going anywhere.

Longevity Noodles – happiness and longevity
Longevity noodles (长寿面 cháng shòu miàn) are a wish for long life and happiness. The noodles are pulled in one long length without being cut and are symbolic of the eater’s life. Noodles should be eaten all in one long piece without breaking it – otherwise your good luck is broken too!