New year with GCC

Happy new year to everyone who follows the lunar calendar! It’s a Chinese tradition to gather with friends and family on new year’s eve while making dumplings, watching China’s annual new year TV event broadcasted live, and just enjoying each other’s presence. This year, I had a nice gathering with the Groupe Chrétien Chinois de Bordeaux at the Cenon church where we did all of the above! Even though we’re away from home, in Christ we’re brought close together as a family and we share joy and love as brothers and sister 🙂 And of course, Penguin said, “We all know the purpose of new year’s celebrations is to eat lots and lots of good food!” Hey, who could say she was wrong? 😉

Mmm, dumplings. Back home in Toronto, my mom makes them regularly and puts them in the freezer so that we can eat them whenever we want, but apparently in other parts of China, people only eat dumplings for special occasions like the new year. My favourite type of stuffing has got to be pork and chives. Nothing has ever tasted better than the taste of home!

Many brothers and sisters helped out with the making of the dumplings, and I think it’s the best part of the day. Everyone makes them in a different way but they all look so pretty when nicely wrapped!

While Chia-Tzu was busy making vegetarian dumplings, Emmanuel posed just in time for the camera with a cute smile and a super Asian gesture. Say cheese, Emmanuel, or do they say “fromage” in France?

Annie and Penguin, adorable sister in Christ.

Gabriel (with many nicknames, like “Duo Duo”, “Ding”, and “Little Little Neng”) and his mommy, Baiyu (or “Jade Blanche”). Little Gabriel is almost 9 months old now and soon he’ll be able to walk and talk and…ahh, please stay cute as you are now!!!

SO…MANY…DUMPLINGS!!! We had 10 packs of wraps, and with approximately 35 wraps in each pack, that means we made about 350 dumplings in total that day. RAWR! Time to eat, maybe?

There are so many ways to cook dumplings. You can boil them, steam them, deep-fry them, pan-fry them…maybe bake them in the oven too? Never tried that, maybe will do it someday. My favourite method of cooking would have to be pan-frying, though every method gives the dumplings a different texture.

After eating, singing, sharing, and playing games, here’s a group picture of the GCC in February 2013 (thanks to Alex the photographer!) The group is not so GC”C” anymore, as the final “C” in GCC stands for “chinois”, which means “Chinese”, and as you can see, we have two non-Chinese guests in our group that night. Diversity is awesome, the more the merrier! Here’s to a prosperous year full of God’s blessings. Cheers!