Dumpling Festival

Today is the Chinese Duanwu Jie or Dumplings Festival which falls every year
on the fifth day of the fifth month according to the lunar calendar. The wet
market near my place was doing a good business this morning selling hundreds
of dumplings. In this day and age, everyone is opting for the easy way to
celebrate this festival by just buying the dumplings, making them as an
offering to their ancestor's tablet and eating them both as lunch and dinner.
The art of making them is usually left to their mothers, grandmothers or aunts.



But back then, during my village days, way back when I was a kid, dumpling
festival was always much anticipated much like all the other Chinese festivals.
Months before the festival, my 1st aunt and elder sister together with my
cousin sister, in fact mostly the women folk, would cycled to a secondary
forest near my village where there were lots of bamboo trees to collect the
bamboo leaves for making the dumplings. Once when I tagged along but
regretted it because my sister had to carry me at the back of the bicycle and
when we had to stack the leaves at the back of the bicycle there was no space
for me to sit. In the end I had to hold on to the leaves ,which were both cutting
and itchy to my skin, and at the same time trying to balance myself sitting at
the back of the bicycle.



Back home, the leaves would be selected to discard the broken ones, washed
and boiled in a big kuali. This kuali belonged to my 1st aunt and it was usually
used twice a year, for making nian gao during the Chinese New Year and for
boiling the leaves and dumplings.



Back in those days, dumplings were usually the savoury ones but there was
one type which was synonymous with the clansmen of our village. It was the
'pillow dumpling' , only known to the older women folk. As the word indicates
it was shaped like a pillow and only my paternal grandmother knew how to
make it. My father relished this dumpling and it was enough for 3 kids to
share one. I used to eat it dipped in some sugar though it was a savoury one.
But somehow sweet and savoury made it more enjoyable for me. We kids
usually discard the pork fat in the centre of the dumpling which would be met
with a knock on the head by the old folks. What a waste, its the best part!

In those days no one ever bothered how many calories the fat contained or
it was bad for the heart. In fact all my grandparents and old folks in the
village lived to a ripe old age.



To most of us and my children nowadays, dumpling festival is just another
old fashioned festival with not much significance. But for me, I will just be
remembering my days in the village where all festivals were celebrated
and enjoyed and there were much less stress than today.