One of the most effective way to learn a culture is through its foods. Chinese Lunar New Year is famous for its hearty and feast-like New Year’s Eve dinner, but what you might not know that the dishes are there not only because of their deliciousness, but also because they symbolize good wishes for the new year. Please note that I am from Southern China, so most of the meaningful foods I can find are from that part. Northern China may have different traditional foods for New Year’s Eve.
Soy-bean sprouts: it looks like a kind of ornamentation called “Ru Yi”, which roughly means “you can get whatever you want”. 
Chinese Bok-choy: the leaves are not meant to be cut, but cooked and served as whole, which implies “longevity”.
Water chestnuts in steamed rice: Water chestnuts in this case represents “treasure” or “fortune”. Looking for water chestnuts in rice is symbolic of “treasure hunting”. The more water chestnuts you can find, the more fortune you will have.
Meat balls and eggs: they are both round, and the word “round” can also mean family reunion in Chinese. Eggs are symbolic of new life, so this dish also means the celebration of new year/life.
Egg dumplings: they are dumplings with shells made of eggs. The golden shells make them look like golden “Yuan Bao”, which is an old type of Chinese currency. Therefore, these egg dumplings symbolize good fortune.
Dumplings with coins inside: during Chinese New Year, people from Northern China would make huge batches of dumplings, and only some of them has coins in them. It is one of children’s favorite activities–to eat a lot of dumplings to find as many coins as they can. It is said that the more coins you can find, the more money you will make in the new year.
Fish: “fish” in Chinese has the same pronunciation as “surplus”. Having a fish dish (or a few of them, for people living near water like me), means “every year you have savings/surplus”.
Chicken and pork leg soup/stew: chicken in Chinese food culture is often associated with phoenix, which symbolizes a good start of a year. Pork legs are pretty big and fat, which wishes for a good end of a year.
Glutinous Rice Balls/Tang Yuan: some areas have them on the 15th day from the first day of Chinese New Year. In my family, we just have them as dessert after dinner. They are round, and the name roughly translates to “round balls in soup”. Same as the meatball dish, “round” in Chinese can also mean “family reunion”.
I have not had a decent New Year’s Eve dinner for four years myself and thinking about all these dishes makes me drool like crazy. I hope you enjoyed this article full of deliciousness and learnt something new about Chinese culture. After all, the Lunar New Year is just an event that brings all the family members together to share good wishes and catch up with each other. The food is not the most important thing (but quite important though), the most important thing is, the entire family is together.
（Pictures from google）
Suzie, I enjoy the food describes in ur article.
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