China is a country with a long history, andfood has played an important role in the development of Chinese culture. Everyyear many traditional festivals and events are celebrated with special foods.Some of these foods have particular meanings, such as good luck, best wishes,unity, and commemoration.

Dating back at least 2,000 years, thesymbolism of foods in China comes from superstitions or traditionalbeliefs in eating to invoke/celebrate blessing. A meaning or"power" is associated with foods through food name pronunciation,food shape, colors, food history/legends, and so on.

Here we introduce several festival and special occasion foods as examples.

Chinese New Year

Dumplings

         SpringFestival (Chinese New Year) is the most importanttraditional festival in China, when Chinese people especially emphasize wishesfor happiness and blessing. So New Year foods usually symbolize goodluck and best wishes.

'Year cake' (年糕 niángāo /nyen-gao/)means 'increasing prosperity' because the name sounds the same as 'year high'or 'yearly increase' (年高 nián gāo).

Dumplingsmean 'wealth', due to their traditional gold/silver ingot shape.

Candysymbolizes wishes for a rich and sweet life, because of the sweet taste.

Lantern Festival

Sweet round stickyrice balls

     LanternFestival is the first full moon night in the Chinesecalendar year, and the full moon as well as the food symbolizes family reunion.

Sweet round sticky rice balls in soup (汤圆 tāngyuán /taang-ywen/ 'soup round') mean'togetherness and reunion'.

The name sounds similar to 'tuanyuan' (团圆tuányuán /twan-ywen/ 'reunion'), and roundness means togetherness and unity inChina.

Dragon Boat Festival

Zong zi

DragonBoat Festival is an important celebration in China to commemorate Qu Yuan, a famous patriotic poet of China inancient times.

Glutinousrice dumplings wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves (粽子 Zòngzi /dzongdzuh/) symbolize Qu Yuancommemoration.

Their symbolism is based on a legend:Qu Yuan drowned himself in the Miluo River on hearing his state was defeated.It's said that people threw rice dumplings into the river to feed the fish, sothey wouldn't eat Qu Yuan's corpse… Learn more about Zongzi.

Mid-Autumn Festival

Mooncakes

          Mid-AutumnFestival is the second most important traditionalChinese festival. It is a time for familymembers and loved ones to get togetherto celebrated family reunion. Therefore, people celebrate it bypreparing foodswith family-reunion symbolicmeanings. Mooncakes mean 'family unity', as they're round, like theharvest moon. Learn more about mooncakes.