Cultural tips

The art of cooking Chinese food has enjoyed its reputation internationally. Statistics show that there are more than 10,000 types of Chinese dishes.

In the long period of development, various places in China have developed their unique local cuisine, among which the most famous are called "Eight Cuisines in China", including Shandong Cuisine, Sichuan Cuisine, Guangdong Cuisine, Cantonese Cuisine, Jiangsu Cuisine, Zhejiang Cuisine, Fujian Cuisine, Hunan Cuisine and Anhui Cuisine. The tastes of these are different. For example, Sichuan food is very spicy, Jiangsu food is a bit sweet and Cantonese food is rather light.

Dumplings have already had a history of more than a thousand years. It's one of the favorite food for the Chinese people. They are wrapped up in dumpling skins with different meat or vegetable fillings inside. And then they are boiled in water. It resembles the "shoe-shaped gold or silver ingots used as money" in the past. Therefore the Chinese like making dumplings during the Spring Festival, indicating "bringing in money and treasure".