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www.google.de 上输入 jiao zi，就会有一堆英文或者中文解释。大年三十吃饺子的传统是有含义和象征意义的。比如有恭喜发财，带来好运等意思，过去过年时还会包一枚硬币在饺子中，吃到的那个人预示新年的好运气等，并可以追朔其历史，展现中国文化。对于德国人，吃可能就只是吃，但对于中国饮食是有文化在里面的。
http://www.anthro.uci.edu/html/Programs/Anthro_Money/JiaoZi.htm
Throughout the world, there are various cultures and societies that celebrate their own traditional festivals. One of the most predominant celebrations in Southern California is the Chinese New Year festival. This festival takes place on the first of the lunar calendar and originates from centuries old traditions. For a long time, China has been a predominantly agricultural society. Due to the hardships of rural life, festivals such as the Chinese New Year have served to help alleviate and enliven the daily routine of the agrarian peoples. Because the yearly success of the agricultural crops weighs heavily upon factors that are beyond the control of an individual (i.e. drought, weather, plague), the Chinese farmers wished heavily for prosperity. They believed that prosperity was a factor that could be invoked to make them successful. It was their prosperity that they wished to improve. According to Patricia Bjaaland Welch, author of Chinese New Year, Chinese New Years is a “… period of saying goodbye to the past and preparing for the future…” (Welch 4). It is the hope of these agrarian families that in preparing for the future, the coming year is filled with luck and prosperity. Chinese New Year is the celebration of this search for luck and prosperity in the forthcoming year. During the New Year festivities, traditions include giving children red envelopes filled with money, burning incense for ancestors and eating dumplings known as jiao zi. In this research paper, we will explore the transition of how a once monetary object evolved into a savory symbolic representation.
The word jiao zi has a fascinating history where it has taken on different meanings throughout the centuries. The end result is a multi-definitive term which does not simply mean dumpling, but is symbolic of the way money is viewed in the Chinese culture.
The history of the jiao zi dates back to the Northern Song Dynasty. During this time, merchants in Chengdu distributed one of the earliest known paper money. The currency was called ‘jiao zi.’ With the high circulation of the currency, the local government of Chengdu established the earliest administrative and savings bank known as the Office of Jiao zi (Chengdu Government). The word jiao zi then began to be used as a general term for money.
In ancient China, yuan bao was used as currency before the use of jiao zi paper money. According to (Beijing Trip), jiao zi looked like shoe shaped gold and silver ingots known as yuan bao. In the Chinese culture, jiao zi are made during the New Year to resemble the gold and silver ingots. People in Henan and Sanxi provinces enjoyed boiling dumplings with noodles and serving them together. “They name the serving ‘golden threads piercing through silver ingots,’ or ‘silver threads stringing together calabash.’ Golden or silver threads mean noodles while silver ingots and calabash refer to jiao zi” (CCTV). Eating the dumplings during the New Year is a metaphor for eating money; when people eat jiao zi during the New Year celebration, they hope that it will bring prosperity and good luck for the forthcoming year.
The term jiao zi has multiple meanings, one of the meanings means “midnight or the end and the beginning of time.” This is why the jiao zi are made the midnight of the last day of the passing lunar year. Another meaning of the term comes from the literal translation to “sleep together and have sons” which is a long lost good wish for a family (Salisbury). Not only does the shape of the jiao zi resemble the golden ingots, it also represents a crescent moon and symbolizes the hope for a year of plenty (Wellington). Occasionally people will add specific fillings to select dumplings in order to symbolize certain wishes. Those who receive sweets will have a sweeter life, peanuts symbolize long life, and dates and chestnuts represent the imminent arrival of a son. Because the word “dates” is homonymic with the word “early” in Chinese, so are chestnuts (zhenzi), the syllable “zi” is homonymic with children (Latsch 7). The tremendous amount of food prepared at this time was meant to symbolize abundance of wealth in the household.
Rich families in ancient times added gold, silver, and other precious stones in their dumplings. To get one of these dumplings was considered good luck. Later this transitioned to adding coins in the dumplings. Copper coins, for example, meant that one would never lack money. In contemporary times, only a few coins were washed and add to the batch of dumplings, the person who discovers the coin would enjoy good luck and make a lot of money in the coming year.
When the Chinese began immigrating to Southern California, they brought over their cultural practices in order to preserve their heritage. |
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发表于 2006-12-13 20:40
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