Today, Friday 9th February 2024 is 除夕 (chú xī), Chinese New Year's Eve, probably the most important day of the holiday.
Most shops will close around noon or shortly after and everyone will head home for 年夜饭 (nián yè fàn), literally 'year eve food', New Year's Eve dinner, also known as 团年饭 (tuán nián fàn), Reunion Dinner.
Literally millions of people have spent this week travelling home for this meal with their families.
It's forecast to be the largest migration of people in history, as it is the first such to be almost Covid free since 2019.
So, what's for dinner? I've been looking through internet accounts of what people consider to be the essential New Year meal. Few agree; some are nonsensical. A large number of people describe what their family eat and assume everyone else is doing the same. It ain't necessarily so.
However, there are a few commonalities.
Chinese New Year is an orgy of superstition and most foods are chosen for their extremely tenuous links, mostly linguistic, to desirable material outcomes such as prosperity and success in the upcoming year.
Fish is important. But the superstition is more so. Fish in Chinese is 鱼 (yú), a homophone of 余 (yú) meaning 'surplus' or 'extra'. So, by eating fish, you will have surplus food and/or money in the new year. Obviously.
The fish, usually carp, is cooked (steamed) and served whole, symbolising family unity and harmony. The head and tail are left on representing
a) the surplus will last from beginning to end
b) the notion of finishing what you start being important.
The fish is placed on the table with the head pointing to the eldest or most important guest and then we can eat. But not all of it! The fish is eaten over two days, doubling down on the 'surplus' theme. We have enough for tomorrow.
We pick the flesh from the middle part of the fish with our chopsticks. When we reach the bones we mustn't flip the fish over or all our luck will tip out and be drowned.
Then we come to chicken. Again steamed is most common. And again served whole. Chicken is 鸡 (jī). But 吉 is also jí, a near homophone (only the tone differs) meaning 'lucky'. So eating chicken will clearly bring luck!
Today, people will have been making 饺子 (jiǎo zi), dumplings. These must be wrapped and ready to cook before midnight. Jiaozi is associated with 交 (jiāo) and 子 (zǐ), the former meaning 'deliver' and the latter, 'midnight'. So the dumplings must be delivered before then.
交 (jiāo) can also mean 'exchange' so reminds us that it is time to exchange the old for the new.
The dumplings are also held to resemble ingots of gold and 角子 (jiǎo zi) is a monetary unit and coin, also representing wealth (despite the coin being worthless today). Indeed such a coin is often hidden in one of the dumplings bringing wealth to the lucky recipient providing they don't choke to death on it.
Tangerines and orange are also a New Year fruit. They are 橙 (chéng). An exact homophone is 成 (chéng) meaning 'success'.
Pomelo is 柚子 (yòu zi), the first character of which is both a near homophone of 有 (yǒu) meaning 'have' and an exact homophone of 又 (yòu) meaning 'again'. Eat a pomelo and you'll have food again!
Other superstitions at New Year are associated with noodles (longevity) and spring rolls and many more.
After dinner, everyone sits down to watch the New Year Gala, a god-awful annual variety show on communist party controlled television. Talentless drones line up to bore everyone year after year. It reminds me of the old regime swept away by the Beatles 60 years ago.
I'm going to eat nothing particularly festive, then attempt to finish cataloguing my snack box in search of something edible.
新年快乐!
