Tuan Tuan, Yuan Yuan

“Tuan tuan, yuan yuan" means reunion and being together with people you love. Eating Tang Yuan (Sweet Glutinous Dumpling) on Yuan Xiao Jie — the last day of Chinese new year — and sitting next to the people I love the most is a moment I love the most. There’s warmth from the ginger soup and oozing black sesame paste from the Tang Yuan, but also warmth from simply sharing the moments with my family. Eating Tang Yuan has never left much emotions as a kid, but everything changed when I lost my dad to cancer in 8th grade.

Something about cooking Tang Yuan is that it requires extreme caution as the skin of the dumplings are fragile — and that’s what my dad’s passing showed me. It has never appeared to me that I would lose a close family member so easily, and never get to share the warmth of Yuan Xiao Jie with them anymore.

However, a broken Tang Yuan still has so much goodness in it, instead of throwing it out, enjoy the rest of it and reflect on your mistakes to better your future. From the breaking of my Tang Yuan, I started to cherish my other Tang Yuans by cherishing the warmth I gain from being surrounded by them, from simply sitting by them, eating my tang yuan on Yuan Xiao Jie.