饺子为什么像元宝?
Why do Chinese dumplings look like gold ingots?
Name: ________________ Date: ________
Key words
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 停 | tíng | to stop; to halt |
| 其中 | qízhōng | among them; in it |
| 原因 | yuányīn | cause; reason |
| 样子 | yàngzi | appearance; look |
| 肚子 | dùzi | belly; abdomen; stomach |
| 表示 | biǎoshì | to express; to indicate; to state |
| 获得 | huòdé | to obtain; to gain; to win |
| 家庭 | jiātíng | family; household |
| 叫作 | jiàozuò | to be called; to be known as |
| 正好 | zhènghǎo | happen to; as it happens |
| 因此 | yīncǐ | therefore; consequently; for this reason |
| 说明 | shuōmíng | explanation; instructions; to explain; to illustrate |
English (for the teacher)
New Year’s Eve: the whole family sits round the table eating dumplings. Suddenly Dad stops and takes a tiny coin out of his mouth. “This is my year to get rich!” he says happily. Grandma looks at him: “How come it’s you who finds it every year?”
In northern China, eating dumplings at Spring Festival is an important tradition. Why dumplings? One reason has to do with their shape. Take a good look: isn’t a dumpling small at both ends and fat in the middle? It looks a lot like an ancient yuanbao ingot. A yuanbao was money made of gold or silver, shaped like a little boat. So eating dumplings is a bit like putting money in your stomach: it shows you hope to gain more wealth in the new year. Some families even say: “Get rich in the New Year, let the ingots roll in!”
The name is interesting too. One explanation is that the “jiao” in “jiaozi” sounds almost the same as the first character of “jiaohuan”, to exchange. In the old days, 11 pm to 1 am was called the “zi hour”, and the zi hour on New Year’s Eve is exactly when the new year takes over from the old one. So eating dumplings at that moment means “seeing off the old year and welcoming the new”.
As for the coin, that’s a custom in many families too. When making the dumplings, people wrap a washed coin inside one of them. Whoever finds it will have the best luck in the new year. Some places wrap sugar or peanuts as well, and whoever gets the sugar will have a sweet year. Of course, eat carefully, or you’ll break a tooth.
So who invented dumplings? There’s a folk story. Legend has it that in the Eastern Han dynasty there was a doctor called Zhang Zhongjing. One winter was so cold that he saw many poor people with frostbitten ears, so he boiled mutton with some medicines, wrapped it in thin flour skins shaped like ears, and gave them to everyone. These were the “tender ears”, which slowly became today’s dumplings. It’s only a legend, but plenty of people like to believe it.
That night, Grandma finally discovered Dad’s secret: the dumpling with the coin was one he had wrapped himself, and it was bigger than all the others.