CIIC:Today's featured article/November 1, 2018

Jiaozi (boiled dumplings stuffed with meat and vegetable filling) are also known as gengnian jiaozi (seeing in the new year dumplings). Although boiled dumplings have been a favorite food of the Chinese people for thousands of years, they have only been essential element of the lunar New Year's festivities since the Ming Dynasty. Jiaozi are the exact size and shape of the small gold ingots that were used for money in ancient China, so eating jiaozi satisfies the desire for wealth. Of course, jiaozi are also incomparably delicious, so on New Year's Eve, virtually everyone in China can be found eating this holiday dish. When vendors boil jiaozi to sell, they will often deliberately break one or two in the pot. But they do not remark upon this with taboo words, such as "break," "shatter," or "disintegrate." Rather, they say that the dumpling's filling has "burst," which in Chinese is a homonym for the auspicious phrase "to get rich." (More...)