This Sunday (Feb. 14), people around the world will be passing red envelopes, lovingly exchanging gifts and feeling the fireworks wherever they go.
Has it already been a lunar year? That’s right, this Sunday is Chinese New Years. And I say good riddance to 4706. I welcome 4707 and the year of the tiger with both roaring optimism and good cheer.
I remember my first Asian celebration of this typically Asian holiday. I was an ESL instructor in South Korea and was pleasantly surprised when my hagwon director gave us all the day off. I believe I celebrated with soju and some Chinese food from the small neighbouring restaurant that offered such culinary options.
As Chinese New Years falls on the same weekend as Family Day in 2010, I will be celebrating the official turning of this alternative to the Gregorian Calendar by my annual meeting with my parents in Saskatoon to eat, what is for us, a Family Day weekend tradition — Dim Sum.
How befitting that we shall be gorging ourselves on Cantonese cuisine at the same time our Hong Kong counterparts are shaking in their giant dragon costumes.
I couldn’t begin to guess at what my favourite Dim Sum delicacy might be. Shrimp Dumplings certainly leave a warm, heavy and satisfied feeling in my stomach. Although, the lotus rice, barbecued pork buns and curried squid tend to equally provide this satisfaction.
Upon further reflection, I think it’s the whole sensation of my overextended stomach acids trying desperately to digest the churning chewed up mass of all these elegant dishes combined that is the true mark of a Dim Sum meal well eaten.
What is it about Chinese food that’s so fraught with awesome? Even the mere odour permeating from the vents of some Chinese noodle house is more gratifying than eating the butteryest of North American suppers.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I suppose it doesn’t really make sense to distinguish between Chinese food and North American food. After all, what can be more small-town Canada than a Chinese restaurant?
It’s amazing just how commonplace the Chinese restaurant is in our culture.
Granted, regional “Chinese” cuisine is often criticized with having a Western bent, but who doesn’t enjoy the all-you-can-eat delicious smorgasbord of deep-fried chicken/seafood/pork products?
As I recall, the Chinese food in South Korea was also largely adapted to fit in with the more traditional Korean diet. Times-Herald reporter and British import Rebecca Lawrence informs me Chinese restaurants are basically everywhere in the U.K. as well. She says the Chinese restaurants over there regularly serve English-style omelettes and chips.
Perhaps that’s why Chinese food is such an international staple — because it is so willing to adjust to meet the needs of whatever culture within which it finds itself.
Chinese food is definitely a survivor of culinary art forms. It thrives in a world where fast-food restaurants spread like locusts, not by necessarily fighting against the competition, but learning from local cuisine and adjusting accordingly.
Heck, some of the best burgers I’ve ever consumed came from restaurants with Han characters on their façades.
What an impressive food type, no doubt indicative of its impressive country of origin. One would have an uphill battle trying to argue Chinese culture (at the very least to some food-related degree) is not a part of Canadian prairie culture.
It’s even harder to deny the Chinese are important to Moose Jaw’s culture, considering the large community of ethnic Chinese within the city limits.
As we prairie folk so often recognize Ukrainian New Years, considering those aspects of our culture deriving from Ukraine, it makes sense that one might consider acknowledging the Chinese New Year’s for similar reasons.
I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.
