Gold Ingot

I’ve always had a very unique complex emotion of dumplings (水餃) since I had a memory. Satirically, I love dumplings so much as I hate them, which has something to do with my family of origin and Chinese New Year’s Eve.

Since I was little, a week before every Chinese New Year, my two sisters and I would be assigned different types of tedious housework like other traditional families for welcoming the festival’s coming. It was a long nightmare and torture for me till the end of the eve. Why it was called a long ‘nightmare’ came with many reasons, but they all led to one key person, that is, my father. For instance, my father strongly believed the main gate of a family house represented the luck of the family. In other words, the cleaner and newer the gate was, the more fortune the family would have in the coming year, which I never believed. But, as the only manpower (男力) in my family, I was commanded to repaint the door every year no matter how new it still looked to me. The process of the repainting was never delightful for me, especially outside alone on a chilly winter day. It normally would take me several days to scratch off all the old paints before I applied new ones, or new paints would not be adhesive to the door. When the work was finally done on Chinese New’s Eve, without looking forward to any grateful words from my father like “Thanks, my son. You did a good job,” the only thing across my mind was the dumplings handmade by my family in the staying up (守歲) because I was starving a lot after work. Apparently, my hunger was one of the reasons why I love dumplings so much.

Weird but very truthful to say, the complete process of making a dumpling (包水餃) was even more tormenting than painting the door. Since it was purely handmade, we had to roll out dumpling skins (水餃皮) from flour with a rolling pin (擀麵棍) all by ourselves, not to mention the effort and time had been spent on the preparation of all the ingredients needed for fillings (水餃餡) since a week ago, including buying, washing, chopping, seasoning (調味), stirring (攪拌) and then finally wrapping (包水餃). My father viewed the dumpling-making process as a formal ritual and tribute to the ancestors so that he particularly got involved in every single step, which gave our family, especially my mom, tremendous pressure. Therefore, my reluctance to participate became the reason why I hate dumplings so much. I naively thought I would feel much happier without taking part in the distressing dumpling making.

However, it was not the stressful process but the filling of the dumpling which made it stand out from all the dumplings. We specifically wrapped only a few selected dumplings with not only fillings but also a coin from $1, $5, to even $10 or a red date (紅棗) randomly buried into the filling of a dumpling, which I would rather call ‘Gold Ingot’ (金元寶) for its oversize. Coins symbolized fortune while red dates meant good luck. Then these ‘Gold Ingots’ would be mixed and cooked together with many other normal dumplings. My father strongly believed the person who could eat a ‘Gold Ingot’ during the staying up would bring big fortune or good luck to the family in the incoming year. The more coins or red dates we ate, the more contribution we made to the family. Although I still didn’t believe it, I would spare my stomach at the family reunion dinner (年夜飯) for the ‘Gold Ingots’, for it was so much fun to try my luck to see how many coins or red dates I could collect. For my family, it was more like an amusing contest than a traditional superstition, where everyone competed with each other to see who could first eat a coin or a red date. The only thing we needed to be very cautious with during the exciting dumpling-eating contest was not to swallow the coin or the seed of a red date, or the celebration of Chinese New Year would end tragically in the hospital. I remember once my uncle, who was so desperate to get a coin or a red date, ate too many dumplings to breathe and still got nothing. The entertainment and the family tie which the dumplings brought to us were another reason why I love dumplings so much.

My complex emotion of dumplings has been finally put a stop since my mom, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s ten years ago, was no longer able to take charge of the heavy dumpling-making duty, and I, as the only son of the family who was reluctant to inherit the tradition, couldn’t take over the mission. Instead, buying packs of so called ‘handmade’ dumplings from outside was the only thing I could do these years.

“Yeah, I don’t have to make a dumpling this year.”

“My mom finally can relax.”

“How wonderful it is!”

I told myself so happily that, seemingly, dumplings were worth nothing for me, but, on the other hand, the irreplaceable flavor of the giant family-made dumpling with a coin or a red date in it was gone for good, too. Suddenly, I appeared to hear a familiar voice asking me

“Dear Louis, do you finally feel happy now?”