In China, Chinese New Year is celebrated with travel, travel, and more travel. Usually, this is due to the fact everyone working in the big cities travel back to their home towns and villages to reunite with their families, eat good food, including traditional and authentic Chinese New Year dishes and ring in the new year.
Last year, an astonishing 3.6 billion trips were made during the Chinese New Year travel month alone. It’s as if everyone in China got on and off a train, a plane or a bus, THREE TIMES. It’s often a long journey, with many traveling for 3-4 days one way and changing modes of transportation a half dozen times before finally arriving home.
As you may have heard in the news, it’s the largest migration in human history, and it happens every year. It’s actually happening as we speak!
When we were living in Beijing, Chinese New Year was always very quiet, the city seemingly emptied of 75% of its inhabitants. The streets were clearer, the subways and busses emptier. It’s interesting to see, and an indication that in the big cities of China today, the vast majority of the people living there came from far and wide looking for the opportunities those cities have to offer.
Photo Source: Bloomberg
The night before the New Year’s Eve is called 小年夜 (“Little” New Year’s Eve), while New Year’s Eve is called 大年夜 (“Big” New Year’s Eve). The Big New Year’s Eve dinner is the most important meal of the year. This is when the whole family sits around the table and has a big, happy and extravagant meal. The reason for all the complicated travel is to make it on time to your family’s dinner table!
But preparing for the New Year isn’t just about the food (though we’ll get back to that in a minute). To prepare for the New Year, people must thoroughly clean their homes to get rid of all the bad stuff from the previous year, including changing bedding and washing the windows. People also dress up their homes with red lanterns and decorations on the front doorway. One thing you’re not allowed to do during the time of the New Year’s celebration, however, is sweep the floor, lest you sweep your prosperity and luck away. If you must—absolutely must—bring out that broom, you need to sweep from the door going inward. This symbolizes bringing in good fortunes (instead of get rid of it).
It’s also a time for personal grooming! Bathing, washing, preparing new clothes, including new socks and shoes. With the arrival of the New Year, people believe that they are showered with prosperity, good health and new possibilities. Everyone is on their best behavior to snap up all the goodness the New Year brings. It’s taboo to fight, yell at kids, cry, break anything, or engage in general unpleasantness.
Of course—we’ll always go back to food—the Big New Year’s Eve Dinner is the centerpiece of the festivities. Every region has their own traditional New Year’s dishes, but one thing you can count on is that each dish symbolizes something.
Every Chinese new year dish has an important “job,” whether it’s bringing health, long life, fortune or abundance to the family. Chickens are served whole (with heads and feet), to symbolize completeness. Two whole fish are served–one eaten on New Year’s Eve, and the other saved for the next day–a symbol of abundance. Chinese people are very imaginative when it comes to endowing food with meaning. The symbolism is usually derived from the pronunciation and meaning of the words themselves. The word for “fish,” for instance,” sounds a lot like the word for “surplus.”
Here are some other fun examples:
Dumplings, 饺子
A must have for the New Year in Northern China especially, and a symbol of happiness, wealth, and family unity. Check out our go-to dumpling recipe.
Spring Rolls, 春卷
These spring rolls look kind of like gold bars, and symbolize wealth and prosperity.
Bamboo, 笋
Bamboo symbolizes a new start and opportunities.
Kumquats, 金桔
In Chinese, the word for kumquat has the word gold in it, and it even kind of resembles a gold nugget.
Candies, 糖果
These symbolize sweetness and fruitfulness.
Lotus seeds, Sunflower seeds, and Watermelon seeds, 籽
Symbolizes the wish for a lot of children and grandchildren!
Whole fish, 鱼
The word for fish sounds similar to the word for surplus, or abundance.
Whole chicken, 鸡
Sounds similar to the word for opportunities. A whole chicken also represents completeness and togetherness. We usually make a poached chicken with ginger scallion oil.
You might also want to try this soy sauce chicken recipe.
Sticky Rice cake, 年糕
The word for these rice cakes, or nian gao in Chinese evokes the idea of increasing your prosperity every year. You can try our stir-fried savory rice cakes.
There’s also a sweet rice cake––here’s our recipe.
As I mentioned before, there are definitely regional differences to every New Year’s Eve dinner table. I was born in Shanghai and spent much of my childhood there, while Bill’s family is Cantonese. The girls (lucky for them) grew up in both worlds and eating both regional cuisines!
Here is a small list of dishes that you might find on a Shanghainese family’s New Year menu. The meal usually has a few cold appetizers 凉菜, then hot dishes 热炒, an over-the-top soup, and a dessert of sweet sticky rice balls:
Wok Roasted Peanuts, 炒花生米
Our recipe here.
Braised Wheat Gluten, 红烧烤麸
Our recipe here.
Shanghai Sweet and Sour Ribs, 糖醋排骨
Our recipe here.
Shanghai Braised Pork Belly, 红烧肉
Our recipe here.
Braised Pork Belly with Arrowhead Root, 红烧肉
Our recipe here.
Chinese Braised Fish (HongShao Yu), 红烧双鱼
Our recipe here.
Chinese Braised Fish (HongShao Yu)
Our recipe here.
Dried Oysters and Black Moss
Our recipe here.
Other recipes include:
- 油爆虾 (you bao shrimp)
- 八宝饭 (eight treasure sweet rice)
- 红烧双鱼 (braised twin fish – see recipe photo/link above)
- 腌剁鲜（bamboo shoot soup with fresh and salted pork)
- 汤圆 (sweet rice ball soup）
And here is small list of dishes that you might find on a Cantonese family’s New Year menu. Bill’s family emphasized the numbers 8 and 9. 8 means prosperity and 9 means longevity.
- 白切鸡 （poached chicken – see recipe photo/link above)
- 冬菇蠔豉发菜（mushrooms, dried oysters, and black moss – you rarely see this dish anymore）
- 慈菇焖猪肉 (raised pork belly with arrowhead root – see recipe photo/link above)
- 清蒸鱼 (steamed fish) – see our recipe for Cantonese Steamed Fish but use two small whole fish!
- 炸生蚝 (fried oysters)
- 姜葱虾 (ginger scallion shrimp, or some kind of shrimp dish) – check out our Scallion Ginger Shrimp recipe
- 蚝油鲍鱼 (abalone with mustard greens)
- 炸白鸽 (fried pigeon)
There are so many wonderful dishes to consider making for your own Chinese New Year’s Eve meal. We at The Woks of Life wish you and yours the absolute best in the New Year!
