New Year's Foods of East and West

Meaning of New Year's Day in the East

For Asians, particularly northeast Asians, New Year's is a time of connectedness with the family, in the present times the family refers to the nuclear family but traditionally the entire patriarchally linked extended family was part of the on-going celebrations. New Year's was a time of silence and reverence for saying goodbye reverently to the old year of sustenance and greeting the New Year with enthusiasm and the hope of abundance and good health.

Different countries in northeast Asia (China, Korea and Japan) have distinctive foods for celebrating the New Year. Following is a food item traditionally included in the New Year's celebration for greeting a New Year.

Rice cake soup in Korea

Rice cakes are an essential part of celebrations in Korean holiday festivities, birthday celebrations, weddings, ancestor veneration ceremonies, Chuseok (Thanksgiving) and of course Seollal (lunar New Year's day). Traditionally Koreans did not celebrate their individual birthdays, formerly criticized as being selfish as it reflected the western attitude of 'individualism'. Koreans traditionally celebrated their birthdays collectively on Seollal when everyone was served a bowl of rice cake soup (떡국) and after consuming the soup, everyone turned a year older together.

Osechi in Japan

In Japan it was traditional bad luck to cook during the first three days of the new year and so special boxes known as juubako (重箱) were desiged to hold special traditional foods to be eaten during those three days of reflecting on the new year. Each of the foods known as osechi-ryouri (御節料理 or お節料理) symbolize some wish for the New Year - long life, abudance in the harvest, health, and more. [For more detailed look at many of the osechi-ryouri dishes and their meanings go the blogsite Japan On-line]. Black beans in a sweetened soysauce symbolize health, anchovies symbolize abundant harvest, roe symbolize fertility and family prosperity (the meaning comes from Japanese homophonic word play) ... to name a few.

Dimsum in China

Dimsum literally means "to touch your heart." It consists of a variety of dumplings, steamed dishes and other goodies, functioning much like French hors d'oeuvres but is much more universal - they are snacks for travelers, a nibble with tea and as meals for the busy. When food is prepared for New Year's celebrations, foods have symbolic meanings usually about prosperity, good luck and counting money. Two kinds of dumplings eaten on New Year's day are jau gok ( 油角) which is believed to resemble ancient Chinese gold ingots, or wealth; similarly in northern China dumplings were prepared with "luck" inside them, and because the dumplings were small and resembled silver ingots, they represent prosperity. In the same way, the ingredients of dimsum or complimentary dishes all have wishes for the New Year. Fish (魚yú) is a homophone for "surpluses"(餘yú), leek (蒜苗/大蒜 suàn miáo/dà suàn) makes it a homophone for "calculating (money)" (算 suàn), and noodles by their appearance represent wishes for longevity.

 

Jau gok (Chinese: 油角; pinyin: yóujiăo)	The main Chinese new year dumpling. It is believed to resemble ancient Chinese gold ingots (simplified Chinese: 金元宝; traditional Chinese: 金元寶; pinyin: jīnyuánbǎo)
jiaozi (dumplings) (Chinese: 餃子)	Eaten traditionally in northern China because the preparation is similar to packaging luck inside the dumpling, which is later eaten. The dumpling resembles a silver ingot, or money. The symbolism is prosperity.

Jau gok (Chinese: 油角; pinyin: yóujiăo)	The main Chinese new year dumpling. It is believed to resemble ancient Chinese gold ingots (simplified Chinese: 金元宝; traditional Chinese: 金元寶; pinyin: jīnyuánbǎo)
jiaozi (dumplings) (Chinese: 餃子)	Eaten traditionally in northern China because the preparation is similar to packaging luck inside the dumpling, which is later eaten. The dumpling resembles a silver ingot, or money. The symbolism is prosperity.

Foods celebrating New Year's Day in some western countries

Grapes in Mexico

For New Year's celebrations people in Mexico herald in the New Year at the stroke of midnight with 12 grapes often piled into a glass of margarita, a flute of champagnes or even sparkling cider - a sidra for toasting in the New Year and then within its first minute the hasty consumption of all 12 grapes which symbolize having luck in the upcoming 12 months (of course each grapes symbolizes a month). Festivities like in any country are not limited to food but are represented by the colors one wears when celebrating. Green clothing attracts a year of good health; red underwear brings love while yellow underwear brings wealth. But of course not all colors can be worn as the wearer must choose which is most important to him or her. But bring on the New Year and down with the 12 grapes.

Oliebollen in Holland

Oliebollen are small donuts (commonly called Dutch Donuts by Brits) which are for celebrating the New Year. Beleived to have first come from Germanic tribes in the Netherlands during the Yule (the period between December 26 and January 6), the donuts were made as an offering to the Germanic goddess Perchta and other evil spirits who were about in the mid-winter sky. To appease the spirits, food was offered. Much of the food contained deep-fried dough which was loaded with fat and thus oiling the sword of the evil Perchta so that her attacks against humans would result in the sword sliding harmlessly off the people who ate the oily bread. So not surprisingly, oliebollen literally means "oil or lard balls".

Focaccia and Banitza in Bulgaria

Ancient Romans baked their flatbreads in the ashes of the fireplace, and the name focaccia reflects this early beginning of the bread panis focacius, which is derived from the Latin focus meaning “center” and also “fireplace”, significant as the fireplace was the center of the house. Nowadays focaccia has evolved into many different kinds of breads with various seasonings and glutinous flours based on the culture where it is being baked. But in Bulgaria, focaccia has taken on a significant cultural meaning for the New Year. A coin in placed in the pan of flatbread and then once the bread has been cut and distributed, whoever gets the piece with the coin in it is said to have particularly good fortune for the coming year.

Banitza is a Bulgarian pasty made of whisked eggs, white cheese and filo pastry and can be made savory (usually) by adding spinach or leeks or even sweet for breakfast by dipping in yogurt and eating with fruit. This traditional Bulgarian bread is popular on certain occasions, particularly New Year's Eve when lucky charms such as coins or small symbolic objects like a dogwood branch with a bud for symbolizing health or longevity are hidden in the bread and found by a person who be richly blessed with New Year's luck. In more recent times, wishes written on paper notes which are wrapped in foil are hidden in the bread. Wishes for happiness, health and success throughout the New Year are most popular. 

Cotechino con lenticchie in Italy

Lentils play an important traditional for zampone and cotechino (deboned pig legs stuffed with pork rinds, sausage and spices). Lentils are a required item for celebrating New Year's Eve as the shape brings to mind tiny coins which people symbolically eat in hopes of attaining cash during the new year. The zampone and cotechino are memories of a past time of poverty when the now precious food item was invented due to a shortage of food. So together, the lentil "coins" and the memories of past poverty are iconic foods for symbolizing prosperity in the upcoming year.

I thank my students Yuna Jung and Min Jeong Kim for outlining this presentation and selecting very appropriate pictures to share as cultural examples. A note from myself on this presentation - I find it very interesting that many of the food selected are based on flour recipes. Maybe some research needs to be done on what percent of traditional celebratory foods require flour of some for the making. Could be very interesting outcome.

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945 - present)

Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of Aung San, who is remembered by the Burmese today as the father of the nation and also as the founder of the army (not the army that politically controls present-day Myanmar). Aung San had a selfless attitude toward power, and built up the army for the sole purpose of asserting Burmese nationhood against the British and later the Japanese who both exercised colonial rule over them.

Aung San Suu Kyi was two years old when her father was assassinated, and for many years she enjoyed a privileged life – school and education in India where she studied political science at Delhi University and also where she came to understand and admire the non-violence embodied in the life and philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. Later, her campaign of civil disobedience in Burma was directly inspired by that example – she cited both Gandhi and Martin Luther King as models.

She continued her education at Oxford University, where she studied Modern Greats (Politics, Philosophy and Economics). After being employed at the United Nations Secretariat in New York, she married the British Tibetologist, Michael Aris in England where she later bore two sons, in 1973 and 1977. She performed various researches, wrote a book on her father, and visited Burma occasionally. However, when her mother became very ill, she returned to Burma to take care of her. While in Burma during the months of caring for her mother (1988), she realized that there was much political turmoil in her country with people wanting change, university students demanding it, but the military government summarily and brutally quelling all dissents and dissidents. At this time, Aung San Suu Kyi felt that her country needed her to step forward and give guidance … and from then on she fought for the democratization of her country and the otherthrow of the military junta that asserted arrogance against her Burmese people.

She had told her husband before marrying him that if her country ever needed her, she must give what she had for her home country. And in a BBC interview she later remarked, “I have never been away from my country and my people” even though physically the miles seemed to say otherwise. In 1990 Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest for years, at first her husband and sons were allowed to visit, but later that privilege was denied her. She remained under house arrest for several years until the mid 1990s when she was abruptly released. The book ends in the mid-90s with one of her many releases from house arrest.

The book Freedom from Fear: Aung San Suu Kyi Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize was first published in 1991 by her husband and my copy states that it continued to be published through 1995. Since, the compiling author Aung San Suu Kyi’s husband has died (on his 53rd birthday from prostate cancer) and she has been placed under house arrest again … and again. The country Myanmar, named by the military government to distance the Burmese people from feeling empowered by having a country named after them, still is a military dictatorship. Aung San Suu Kyi still fights for freedom for her people, and the outside world is starting to become more aware … but oh so gradually, because isn’t it true that economics control politics and what would it benefit other countries to assist Burma in gaining their political freedom???

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Follow-up information: In 1989 Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest by the Burmese government, renamed the "Union of Myanmar", and for the next 21 years, 15 of those years were spent in house arrest. In November 2010 she was finally, at least most recently, released. Read here for a more complete biography and here for a basic timeline of her stand-off with the Burmese government.