Collin College: DigitalCommons@Collin

He, Jiayi

Collin College 
DigitalCommons@Collin 
INRW/Coreq Student Showcase Developmental Education 
Spring 5-6-2024 
Grandma's Dining Room: Chinese New Year 
Jiayi He 
Collin College 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.collin.edu/inrwshowcase 
Recommended Citation 
He, Jiayi, "Grandma's Dining Room: Chinese New Year" (2024). INRW/Coreq Student Showcase. 18. 
https://digitalcommons.collin.edu/inrwshowcase/18 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Developmental Education at DigitalCommons@Collin. 
It has been accepted for inclusion in INRW/Coreq Student Showcase by an authorized administrator of 
DigitalCommons@Collin. For more information, please contact mtomlin@collin.edu. 
Grandma’s Dining Room: Chinese New Year
Grandma’s house was always the busiest during the Chinese New Year, and what I
miss most is the dining room at my Grandma’s house. When red, orange and blue fireworks
flashed in the sky, when lanterns with warm red light were hung in front of every house, and
the dark alleys became bright with such colors, it meant dinner was about to start. When I
was a child, I looked forward to the invitation on Lunar New Year's Eve, "Come on down. It's
time to eat!". No matter what I was doing I would rush to the room that I love. In this room,
there was a big wooden round table that almost filled the room. On the top of the brown
wooden table was a lazy susan and there were more than a dozen matching wooden chairs
with backrests placed around the round table. In my memory, my Grandma’s house had been
renovated many times, but this small room has not changed since I can remember. Next to the
big round table were two refrigerators that can hold everything in the world so that I can
always find everything I wanted here. There was also a magical door in the dining room of
my Grandma’s house, a door that connected the dining room and the kitchen. This door was
like the anywhere door of Doraemon that children had longed for since childhood, and all my
favorite foods will be transported through this small door. I stood in front of this door and
looked inside, and a beam of white light shone on my face. Behind the white light were the
busy family members, and they were like robot cats who can do everything, and the pot on
the stove was their magic pocket. When the big wooden round table was filled with my
favorite dishes, and the smell of the sea hit my nostrils. Most of the dishes on the table were
seafood because Grandma’s house was close to the sea. There were steamed blue crabs and
squid with garlic vermicelli, spicy fried shrimp, boiled sea snails, and razor clams. This
seafood family was what I had been looking forward to in my life. The staple food placed in
the middle of each plate was a kind of rice cake unique to this place, that was the
brown-green leaves wrapped in a lightly sweet rice cake made of sticky rice. In addition to
these, there were pork rib soup, longan and grapes, bayberry wine for adults, and herbal tea
for children. The bayberry wine was brewed by Grandma every year. Under the purple red
wine, there were large and plump red bayberries that soaked up the wine. Although I have
never actually drunk it, the special sweet smell was engraved in my memory. Our family sat
around the table, and I couldn't wait to enjoy this feast. I turned the lazy susan in front of me,
and I picked up my favorite crab and using my teeth cracked the crab’s hard shell, the
delicious juice exploding in my mouth. Then I used my whole strength to peel the shell open,
and when I took a small bite of the white crab meat, a vase of the ocean was in my mouth. At
this time, a mouthful of sweet rice cake was the most perfect combination in the world. I held
the hot rice cake in the palm of my hand, the warmth of winter spread from the palm of my
hand to my body. After I peeled off the leaves and took a bite of the glutinous texture, It
stayed in my mouth for a long time and couldn't leave. In this room, adults sometimes told
each other about what they had encountered in the past year, and sometimes talked about
interesting things that happened when we were together in the past. From time to time, adults
would raise glasses to celebrate the New Year, and children would celebrate with the adults
with drinks in their glasses. The loud sound of firecrackers outside the room and the laughter
inside the room were the perfect combination. The dinner that happens only once a year is
called the reunion dinner in China. When the shells of various seafood piled up into small
hills in front of everyone, it meant that the reunion dinner was about to end, but the activities
of the Spring Festival were far more than that. This dining room was filled with special
memories of my childhood. The New Year spent at my Grandma’s house, and the reunion
dinner eaten in this dining room, could be considered my truly perfect Chinese New Year.


English

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