Name: The Eeva Show EP 9 :包粽子的人
Uploaded: 2015-06-01T12:40:14.000Z
Duration: 17 min 32 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

It's going to be the dragon boat festival soon.

Can you describe to us what that's like for your family?

Adverbs of manner

When it became a business to us, we started to view its culture differently.

During festivals, we'd help people wrap dumplings.

Our family would gather once a year specially to wrap dumplings.

How long would you take to wrap the dumplings?

We'd start at 6am and finish at around 4am the next day,

so we'd only get about 2 to 3 hours of sleep every day.

Does that mean that you've only gotten 2 to 3 hours of sleep last night?

Everyone's wrapping dumplings from 6am till 4am the next day?

We have to wrap about 4000 dumplings per day.

Wow, and you continue until the dragon boat festival.

Even though everyone might feel that Singapore is very westernized, that is not actually the case.

In fact, a lot of Singaporeans value the Chinese culture as well as traditions, just like this Jin Zhu Dumpling Museum.

It belongs to this man sitting next to me, and whom I'm meeting for the second time, Ding Xiang.

Schools often teach that the dragon boat festival is for the sake of remembering Qu Yuan.

It actually has a bigger goal, and that is to welcome the summer festival, ward off insects

and illnesses, and bring everyone together to wrap dumplings in order to usher in the new season.

We're gathered here today to wrap nyonya dumplings together.

I must tell our friends from around the world, this can only be eaten in South East Asia.

Perhaps the next time you visit Singapore, you can come to Jin Zhu Dumplings

and look at their special product, the nyonya dumpling.

Does its name imply that it's a dumpling that won't anger your mother?

What is meant by nyonya dumpling? Could you explain for us?

The reason why it's called nyonya dumpling is because when we Chinese first arrived

in South East Asia, we were unable to find bamboo leaves to wrap dumplings.

What were the other similar types of leaves in Singapore that we could use?

The pandan leaves in Singapore are extremely big.

Only in Singapore will you be able to find big pandan leaves.

There's also a reason for that; our pandan leaves are imported from Malaysia.

The nyonya dumplings in Malaysia are wrapped with smaller leaves.

There's also a reason why they use small leaves while we use big leaves.

The nyonya dumplings in Singapore use the big pandan leaves, while the ones in Malaysia use the small leaves.

The one we're using today is a bamboo leaf?

For demonstration purposes, we'll use a bamboo leaf to teach you how to wrap dumplings.

Other than the pandan leaves, the fillings for the nyonya dumplings should be very special as well, right?

Our nyonyas hope to look slim with beautiful body lines, that's why they're very particular about what they eat.

You can see some white spots in our filling, right?

I get it, it's so that it looks like fatty meat but it won't actually make you fat,

that's why you've substituted with winter melon strips.

Yes, the sweetness is from the winter melon strips.

Is there anything that you absolutely have to add into the filling,

otherwise it wouldn't be considered a nyonya dumpling anymore?

We have what's called "kondobang" and we also have five-spice powder.

Oh, coriander powder. It's great that we have your mother here.

We also have a secret family recipe that we cannot divulge.

Oh, no wonder it's so fragrant. You actually have a secret recipe.

Our glutinous rice is special because it's completely white.

We don't have any transparent rice, that's why our glutinous rice has been specially chosen.

Oh, so this is the only one? That's great.

Is there any special type of string used to wrap the dumpling?

In the early days, we used to use hemp rope.

But now because we have a variety of dumplings, for the sake of differentiating them,

red strings are used for nyonya dumplings.

Is this for Jin Zhu or the same in the whole of South East Asia?

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The Eeva Show EP 9 :包粽子的人

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