The fifth day of the
first lunar month is traditionally dubbed
Crack Five (破五) for it is the day
when the festival has formally passed its
climax and life begins to return to what it
was like before New Year’s Eve.
If we transform time
into space, and think Chinese New Year
festival as mountain climbing, then the
Buddhist soup kitchen on lunar December 8 is certainly set by
the gateway at the hill foot. From there you
start your journey. After half month of slow
hiking, you’ve reached the turning point of
lunar December 23, from where the summit of
New Year’s Eve is right in your sight. So
you begin to ascend at a sharp pace and
eventually put on a spurt until you gain the
peak.
Once on the top, you
cross the dividing line to the other side,
and you find a whole new horizon opening up
to you. Naturally, you would like to sit down
for a while and enjoy the moment. To Chinese,
nevertheless, this period is more than just
being a holiday break. Much more. It is
viewed, in fact, THE crucial point at which
the theme and momentum of the coming year is
set.
Just as what has
happened in the first few days after a baby
was born could have a decisive influence on
its entirely life - as many people have
believed - the first few days of a new year
would exert a critical effect on the coming
four seasons. And that is why historically
many rules and customs were introduced to
govern the behaviour of grown-ups and
youngers, just to insure the starting motion
running optimal.
The following verse
by a Tianjin poet reflects wonderfully on
this ancient practice:
新正妇女忌偏多，生米连朝不下锅，
杯碗捧持须谨慎，小心破五未曾过。*
It is said that in
the first four days, which represent the
coming four seasons, the housewives would
avoid to cook fresh rice, but only serve what
was left from New Year’s Eve, so as to lay
the blueprint of a well-off year resulted
from the previous bump harvest. When handling
the cutleries, extra care would be taken,
since the implications of having a rice bowl
smashed by accident in the beginning of the
year could be quite damning. The hygienic
practice of sweeping the floor would also be
discouraged during these days, for fear of
disturbing the fresh new qi accumulating
and consolidating.
But all these rules
and cautions can be thrown out of the window
when the dawn of the fifth day cracks. Once
again we are liberated from our short-lived
good manners, and we celebrate by setting off
firecrackers and eating
dumplings. In the midst of this jubilant
moment, comes along the God of Weath, urging
everyone to return to work by offering a
promising hope of a prosperous future. So in
the old days, the shops all reopened on lunar
January sixth. From that point on, you start
to slowly descend the mountain, towards
Dragon Boat show and lantern
parade near the exit at the hill
foot. A new circle begins.
The Crack Five in the
year of the Pig is on 22 February, and jiaozi
once again became the hottest commodity of
the day, particularly in the northern China.
A supermarket in Beijing is reported to have
sold 130 kilo ready-made jiaozi in just one
hour. And the restaurants in the city
specialized in dumpling were all fully booked
beforehand.
A waiter delivers
Crack Five jiaozi to costumers at the
Garden of Hundreds Jiaozi in Tianjin
on the 22 February, the fifth day of
the first month in the Pig year,
The conventional
jiaozi filling is normally made of pork mince
and finely chopped vegetable, with Chinese
garlic chives (韭菜) and Chinese yellow
cabbage (大白菜，黄芽菜) being the most
commonly used veges. Nowadays, almost
everything can be stuffed into the jiaozi,
from fish, mutton, tomato to chilli. It is
rumoured that at the Garden of Hundreds
Jiaozi you can choose your favoured dumpling
from up to 230 different flavours.
Here are some jiaozi
in quite unusual shapes:
