Happy Chinese New Year
|
|
Chinese Dumpling
|
|
Jiaozi, or dumplings with meat and vegetable fillings, is very popular at the New Year and at other festivals. It tops the list of delicacies of people in North China, where people eat jiaozi at midnight on New Year's Eve and for breakfast on New Year's Day.
The history of jiaozi dates back to ancient times. But the custom of making jiaozi a special dish during the Spring Festival, or the Chinese lunar New Year, started in the Ming Dynasty, some 500 to 600 years ago.
The reason is simple.The appearance of jiaozi looks like the V-shape(some say half-moon shaped) gold or silver ingot used as money in ancient China. As the Spring Festival marks the start of a new year, people choose to eat jiaozi to connote their wishjes for good fortune in the new year.
|
|
Chinese Chopsticks
|
|
No one knows for sure when chopsticks were invented. But history shows that the use of chopsticks dates back 3000 years. Dr.Li Zhengdao, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, once stated that chopsticks were invented as early as the Spring and Autumn Perion (770-475 BC), this seemingly simple tool illustrates the wonder of the principle of levers.
Chopsticks, which are usually 25 centimeters long, may be of many different kinds. The plainest of all are made of bamboo or wood(disposable wooden chopsticks are now universally available), the most elaborate are of lacquered ver. Special longer chopsticks, which foreigners usually call
|
|
Fashion in China
|
|
In the 60's and 70's, almost all Chinese people dressed in simple dark blue "Mao Suits". Western style clothes like jeans were rarely seen, though by then they were well-established on the international fashion scene.
Visitors coming into China nowaday marvel at the rich variety of colour Chinese are wearing. When China opened its doors, jeans were among the first batch of foreign clothing appearing in China's market. For many young people, they held a certain exotic appeal as fashion apparel, but for some senior citizens, jeans were still something western and bourgeois, and to be trendy was very risky in those years.
|
|
|
