1 Prologue

'Why did you left me? How come you abandoned me?' I gasped for air as I cried my heart out. 'Help! I need to get my heart fixed!'

'The confidence that I had in love, the faith that I had in him, has been absolutely shattered.' My chest hurted and I was in excruciating excessive pain.

'I am heartbroken; I'm not sure what is now left in me.' My thoughts have been jumbled up in a mess.

'How is he doing? Why did he abandon me in this state when we were actually getting along?' I have been crying since the day he left, but my thoughts have always been drawn to him.

'I need to know the answer; I have been trying to figure it out for quite some time, but I failed everytime.' I yanked the bed sheets from the bed, gripping them tightly in my hands.

"WHY?" With the agony I was in, I screamed loudly and tears streamed down my face.

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"~Oh angel, come to me dear!

Thou must not fear and not thy shed a tear,

Popping fireworks, red lanterns, dancing dragons are all here—

For you, this is your Lunar New year.~"

I chuckled while clapping, being proud of my instant poetry I made.

"Eh.... What is Lunar New Year ?" She asked.

I chuckled before answering my little angel's question, "The Lunar New Year and the Spring Festival are related to one another, but they are not the same thing. The Spring Festival has a english name as 'The Chinese New Year' which is based on the Chinese lunar calendar."

I caressed her head and poked her cheek making her giggle, "The lunar calendar is a calendar based on complete cycles of phases of the Moon. So, the Chinese New Year marks the start of a new lunar year. The Spring Festival starts off with the new moon, a crescent moon that's usually not visible on Earth, which falls between the end of January and the end of February."

"How many days does it last?" my angel asked while messing with her sheets.

"The festival lasts for 15 days, culminating when the full moon arrives, and typically includes lighting traditional Chinese lanterns, dragon dances, and fireworks."

"Mommy, What do we get to eat at this Spring Festival?"

"Haha, always so hungry?" I pinched her nose, "Well, we have fruits, fish, dumplings, spring rolls, rice cakes, sweet rice balls and noodles during the festival. These are all Spring Festival traditional foods."

"Can I have dumplings now?" she whispered slowly.

"Oh why not the others ? I can make rice cakes for you, if you want." I smirked, tickling her.

"N—no! I want only the dumplings." she whined with a frown between her brows.

"Alright, don't get mad baby. I will make dumplings right away for you." I got off from my bed.

"Mommy, which is your most memorable Chinese New year ?" my angel inquired further with a hope to know more, but i stopped in my way because the answer to her question was something that changed my life.

"Baby, do you really want to know which is my memorable Chinese New Year ?"

She nodded in response.

"Then come here, let me make the dumplings and tell you my story of the most memorable Chinese New Year." I settled my little angel on the chair, so that I can keep an eye on her while I'm busy in the kitchen.

I took a large bowl, poured some flour, one teaspoon of salt, and warm water and mixed until the dough was well-combined, "It was 10 years ago, when I was seventeen year old."

My daughter's eyes were fixed on the dough while I was narrating my story.

"It wasn't a good memorable Chinese New Year, but that time changed my life." I rolled out the dough on a floured surface and knead until smooth.

"That year my parents, who were your grandparents, they died before the festival in a car accident while we were returning home from Chinatown." I divided the dough into four equal parts.

"Luckily, I and your uncle survived that accident but we were both orphans who didn't know their way to home." I rolled out one piece of dough into a thin log and divided it into eight pieces, since I wanted a small size of dumplings.

I made more twenty-four pieces of dough with the remaining dough portions. I lightly sprinkled flour on the dough pieces and rolled out one piece into a thin circle roughly 4-inches in diameter while keeping the dumpling wrappers separated with a small piece of parchment paper and stored them into the freezer which will result in fresh juicy dumplings later.

"We wandered all around the streets of Singapore. Me and my eight year old brother had to walk all day and night just to search for food and shelter." I sighed in pain, while taking a medium bowl and some freshly chopped cabbage, green onions, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, and sesame oil to be mixed until well-incorporated.

While I narrated my story, I took two bowls and poured the cabbage mixture into each of them equally.

We had some ground pork in the refrigerator, so I thought to make ground pork filling dumplings. Combining the ground pork with the remaining teaspoon of salt, a little pepper along with the cabbage mixture and stirred until it's well-marinated

My daughter's mood-swings are pretty dangerous when it comes to food, so I decided to prepare veggie filling dumplings as well.

I took some mushrooms, two carrots, potatoes, fresh peas, and some coriander leaves, and washed them in the sink while my daughter was staring at me.

<<Chop! Chop!>>

"What happened when uncle and you wandered around the streets of Singapore?" my little daughter asked, being restless.

"We both never found a shelter actually for 14 days." I continued to chop the washed carrots, "But that Lunar Year taught us how to be strong when we are lonely and friendless.

I started peeling the potatoes after I was done with mushrooms and carrots, "We only got pitied eyes and sympathetic wishes from all people for 14 days. Every memory is stored in me. That was the year, when I and your uncle became self sufficient."

Putting all the grated vegetables in a borosilicate glass bowl, they were ready to go into the microwave for 3 minutes, until they were soft to be mixed.

"I want to hear all the details of what happened during those fourteen days, mommy." my hungry little angel whined.

"Alright, alright! Mommy will tell you. But first mommy needs to cook the dumplings for you." I left water to boil in the oven in a large skillet while I did the other preparations.

Taking a rack, I placed cabbage leaves to line the steamer, and then brought out the wrapped dough of dumplings from the freezer and unwrap them one by one. I placed them on a plate to be filled with pork and veggies.

<<Ting! >>

Three minutes was over, I carefully pulled out the soft raw veggies and poured them into another bowl which already consisted of the cabbage mixture. I marinated them until they looked edible.

And my daughter's gaze was fixed on me.

To assemble the dumplings, I added roughly one heaping tablespoon of pork filling to the center of a dumpling wrapper and lightly coated half of the outside of the wrapper with water.

Folding the moistened half of the wrapper over the filling using my fingers, I pleated it's edges to seal. I repeated this with the remaining veggie fillings and wrappers as well.

When the dumplings were all set to steam, my daughter was already drooling.

"Mommy will feed you soon." I chuckled seeing her.

The boiled water was ready, so I placed all the dumplings on the cabbage leaves on the rack and cooked them on a large skillet.