During the Lunar New Year, dumplings – shaped like ancient gold ingots – transform into edible lucky charms, so the more you eat, the more good fortune you usher in. Which is why in the lead up to the Lunar New Year, my friends can be seen gathering around the dining table to fold dumplings with their families. But my family? We fetch ours from the frozen food section at the local Chinese shop.
While the dumpling-making scenes from movies like
Crazy Rich Asians and Pixar’s
Bao are familiar to my friends who grew up with the same ritual; painstakingly pleating the edges of meat-filled parcels is a foreign process to me. This surprises people because for some reason it’s assumed that anyone who comes from a Chinese family would have an inbuilt ability to make delicious dumplings from scratch.