Page 134 - 來學華語課本第五冊

Lesson 08 臺灣節慶美食

英文課文 Text in English

The Taiwanese people really treasure their major traditional festival celebrations.
Each of these features its own unique cuisine and time off from the normal routine of
life, study, or work to reunite with family members, enjoy delicious food together, and

thoroughly celebrate the festive occasion.
The Spring Festival is the holiday period for celebrating the Lunar New Year. For
Taiwanese, it does not feel like the New Year until the Spring Festival arrives, so the Spring

Festival is synonymous with celebrating the Lunar New Year. It's the most important of the
traditional festivals and has the longest holiday period. Lunar New Year delicacies include

New Year’s dishes and special snacks. Traditional New Year’s dishes, prepared with costly
ingredients and elaborate cooking methods, are mainly to be enjoyed during the Lunar New
Year, as they must not only be savory but also have auspicious symbolic meanings, often

pertaining to homophones for their names. For example, the dinner on New Year's Eve must
include a dish made with a whole fish, symbolizing "plenty year after year" [as the word

“plenty” is a homophone for the word “fish”]. Rice cake is a special snack, which, besides
being tasty, also has the symbolic significance of "ever more prosperous or successful year
after year" [because the word for “cake” is a homophone for the first syllable of “ever

higher”].
After the Spring Festival, winter has passed. The next festival is the Tomb-Sweeping
Festival in spring. Taiwanese people visit their ancestors' graves and pay their respects

during the Tomb-Sweeping Festival, while also during this holiday period enjoying runbing,
or spring rolls. These are made from a thin pancake on the outside [that is not deep fried]
and filled with various springtime vegetables, symbolizing the growth of all living things.

By summer, the Dragon Boat Festival arrives, for which the representative food is
zongzi. This is a dumpling mostly made of glutinous rice filled with pork and/or vegetable

morsels and wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves. There are quite a variety of types and
flavors of this dumpling, but no matter which kind it is, it must be steamed for a long time.
This not only makes it delicious but also relatively easy to preserve. In addition, calamus

and mugwort are hung on doorways and realgar powder is sprinkled throughout the house
to ward off insects. From these customs, it is evident that early on in Taiwan’s history, its

people had an understanding and appreciation of culinary and environmental hygiene during
summer.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is an autumnal holiday during which the weather

gradually cools and the fullest moon of the year is visible, making it a good time for the

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