China News Agency, Xining, January 22, title: New Year's Eve dinner for Taiwan compatriots in the plateau: nostalgia for family and taste buds

　　Author Pan Yujie

　　On the afternoon of New Year's Eve, the last dish of "preserved vegetables and eggs" was cooked, and Chen Zhiming's family's New Year's Eve dinner table was complete. This dish was simple to make, but it reminded him of the old days.

　　Taiwanese businessman Chen Zhiming currently lives in Xining City, Qinghai Province. His father Chen Cangen was originally from Wufeng Township, Taichung City, Taiwan. He came to the mainland in 1948.

"Father always misses his family in his homeland." Chen Zhiming recalled that preserved radish eggs, radish cake, and shredded bananas were his father's favorite common flavors.

Now, these small dishes have become the "repertoire" of Chen Zhiming's family.

　　Video blogger Wang Dunli has a similar experience to Chen Zhiming, the difference is that he grew up in Taiwan, and his parents are from Shandong and Shanghai.

In Wang Dunli's childhood memory, every New Year's Eve dinner at home is a "gathering of the north and the south": dumplings stuffed with cabbage and green onions, with delicate refreshments on the side...

　　The tolerant eating habits have affected Wang Dunli's character: he has lived in the mainland for nearly ten years, and worked in the southern coastal cities. Strict, but the presentation is solid and satisfying, just like the temperament of the locals.”

　　That night, Wang Dunli and his colleagues had a New Year’s Eve dinner together. Northwest-style roasted whole lamb, hot pot, and stuffed skin were served on the table. He suddenly remembered the situation when he was a child and his family made dumplings around the table. “The biggest regret of my parents was that they didn’t have time to see The great rivers and mountains of the motherland." Today, he has decided to stay in the mainland because it is "the closest place to his parents."

　　At dinner time, the dining room of Taiwanese businessman Jian Jiacheng's restaurant was full.

He has been engaged in the catering business in Xining City, Qinghai Province for more than eight years. He tried to launch a Taiwanese-style New Year's Eve set meal for the first time. Unexpectedly, it was "very popular", and all the boxes in the five restaurants were booked out early.

　　According to Jian Jiacheng, Taiwan’s new year’s food must first be a whole chicken, which is the same as the word “home” in the Hokkien dialect; sweet mustard greens and pork skin noodles are both “long-year dishes”, which means that the whole family will live long after suffering; there are also Buddha jumping over the wall and hair cakes. , Japanese Sukiyaki, etc.

"This table is a combination of Chinese and foreign dishes, and the names of the dishes all imply auspiciousness. I want to please the lucky head at the beginning of the new year." He said.

　　This table of authentic Taiwanese New Year dishes was brought to a small inland town on the northwest plateau by the Jian family to attract diners.

On his family's New Year's Eve dinner table, various Qinghai special noodles such as noodles and stir-fried dumplings are served "fancy" on the table, while he cooks a "lettuce and shrimp floss": fried shrimp and deep-fried dough sticks rolled up with lettuce leaves , onions, eggs, etc., sweet and refreshing.

　　"In the 1970s and 1980s, Taiwan compatriots who went to foreign countries to work hard developed this convenient and delicious 'lettuce and shrimp floss' in Chinatown in order to cater to the local eating habits." In the eyes of Jian Jiacheng, this dish Cuisine represents the pioneering spirit of the Taiwanese, and can better convey the friendship between relatives and friends.

　　Jian Jiacheng's ancestral home is in Shandong, and he was born on the coast of Yilan County, Taiwan. When he was a child, he went to temple fairs with relatives and friends to pray for blessings, which is still fresh in his memory.

Nowadays, the way of life changes with the times, and the "sense of ritual" on New Year's Eve in the city is simplified to a few words of blessing when the juniors toast at the New Year's Eve dinner table and the "red envelopes" prepared by the old people.

　　"Nevertheless, both sides of the strait continue the traditional Chinese culture of respecting elders and filial piety." Jian Jiacheng said that the nostalgia of his parents is "a small stamp and a shallow strait". They have long been indistinguishable from each other in close communication, "From the perspective of emotional connection, they have never been separated." (End)