Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Grace Lin is the award-winning and bestselling author and illustrator of Starry River of the Sky, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, The Year of the Dog, The Year of the Rat, Dumpling Days, and Ling & Ting, as well as pictures books such as The Ugly Vegetables and Caldecott Honor book A Big Mooncake for Little Star. Grace lives with her husband and daughter in Western MA, where they get plenty of winter snow. Her website is www.gracelin.com.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Dumpling Days

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Chapter 1

A Month in Taiwan

“PINK, PINK, PINK,” I SAID OVER KI-KI TO MOM. LISSY, Ki-Ki, and I were sitting next to each other on an airplane, and we were wearing the same hot-pink overall dresses, the color of the neon donut sign in the food court back in the airport. “Why did it have to be pink?”

“That was the only color they had that was in all three of your sizes,” Mom told me. “And I wanted to make sure you matched so it would be easy to keep an eye on you.”

“I can keep an eye on myself,” I said as I pulled at the brilliant-colored denim. The matching jumpers made it easy for everyone on the airplane to keep an eye on us, and it was embarrassing. Lissy thought so, too.

“I hope no one I know sees me,” Lissy had said, horrified. “I can’t believe you’re making me wear the same dress as a six-year-old.”

“Seven!” Ki-Ki had said. “I’m seven!”

But Mom hadn’t listened to even our loudest protests, and now we were on the plane in matching dresses. Whenever people passed us, they smiled and I didn’t blame them. We looked ridiculous, like plastic birds in a flock of flying ducks.

“This is an important trip,” Dad said. “Traveling is always important—it opens your mind. You take something with you, you leave something behind, and you are forever changed. That is a good trip.”

“Yeah, but why does it have to be a trip to Taiwan?” I asked. Dad always spouted in dramatic ways about things, sometimes to be funny but other times because he really meant it. When he meant it, we usually ignored him. “Why couldn’t it be a trip to Hawaii? Or California? At least then we could’ve seen Melody!”

Melody was my best friend, and last year she had moved to California. I wished so much we were going to visit her. But, instead, we were going to Taiwan. Taiwan was far away. It was so far that I wasn’t even sure where it was. Mom and Dad called it their homeland. But to me and my sisters, our small town of New Hartford, New York—with its big trees and sprawling lawns, the one shopping mall, and the red brick school with the tall, waving American flag—was our homeland.

I was also grumpy because I had to sit in the exact middle of the row. Mom and Dad sat on either end, Lissy sat next to Dad, and Ki-Ki next to Mom. I was stuck between Lissy and Ki-Ki, and I didn’t get to see anything that was going on. “What do you want to see?” Dad said when I complained. “There’s nothing to see. You would be just as bored sitting on the end as you would be sitting in the middle.”

“And I can’t believe we’re going to be gone for the whole summer,” I said. It seemed so unfair. All my friends at school got to go to fun places for the summer, like the beach or amusement parks. Melody lived near the Universal Studios theme park. They have a ride there, she had written me. It’s even better than 3-D. They call it 4-D!

“It’s not the whole summer,” Mom said. “It’s just one month. Twenty-eight days.”

“It’s not like you have anything better to do,” Lissy said.

“You don’t, either!” I said. But she was kind of right. Even though I had other friends, ever since Melody had moved away, my school vacations seemed to drag on like waiting in line at the supermarket. But I still knew I’d rather be at home than go to Taiwan.

“I have lots of things to do,” Lissy said with a superior look. “Why can’t we leave earlier, like when Dad leaves?”

“I have to leave earlier because I have to work,” Dad said before I could say anything to Lissy. “You are the lucky ones! I wish I could stay the whole time.”

“Besides, we aren’t staying that much longer,” Mom said. “Just twelve days more. We want to be there for Grandma’s birthday. She’s going to be sixty, so it’s important.”

“Why?” Ki-Ki asked. Ki-Ki was always asking why. Ever since her teacher had told her that there was no such thing as a stupid question, Ki-Ki never stopped asking any. She used to even ask things like “Why is why, why?” Her questions weren’t as silly anymore, but she still asked a lot of them.

“Well, remember how there is a Chinese twelve-year cycle—every year is named after a different animal, and it repeats every twelve years?” Mom said. “Grandma is going to be sixty, and that means she has lived through all twelve Chinese animal years five times. That is very lucky.”

“Pacy and Ki-Ki, you’ve never been to Taiwan before. And Lissy, you were probably too young to remember,” Dad said. “We need to go to Taiwan so you will get to know your roots.”

“Roots?” Ki-Ki said, swinging her legs to show Dad the bottoms of her feet. “I don’t have roots!”

Lissy and I rolled our eyes. Ki-Ki still liked acting like a baby sometimes. Mom said it was because she was the youngest.

“Silly,” Mom said. “You know what he means. We want you to see the place where we came from, before we came to the United States.”

“You should know Taiwan. It’s…” Dad said, his face dimming as he tried to think of the right word in English. His face fell, and he said it in Chinese instead. “It’s… Taiwan is… bao dao.”

Bao dao? I didn’t know a lot of Chinese, but that word seemed familiar. It sounded like the Chinese word for…

“Pork buns!” I said. “Fried dumplings? Taiwan is wrapped meat?”

“No,” Mom said, and laughed. “You are thinking of baozi and jiaozi! I guess bao dao does sound a little like the words for pork buns and dumplings. But bao dao is completely different. It means ‘treasure island.’ People call Taiwan an island of treasure.”

“Treasure?” Ki-Ki asked. “Is there buried gold there?”

“Well, no, not gold,” Dad said. “Treasure like forests and water and rich earth to grow food.”

Taiwan suddenly sounded like the woods in our backyard at home. Ki-Ki thought so, too.

“Taiwan sounds like camping!” she said. “Is that the treasure?”

I looked at Dad eagerly. Camping was interesting. We had never gone camping. Dad didn’t like it. He always said, “What’s so good about camping? Who wants to sleep on the ground?” Maybe he would like it if we were camping in Taiwan?

“No! Taiwan is not camping!” Dad said, and we could all tell he was having a hard time thinking of how to explain it. I was disappointed about the camping. “Taiwan is cities and cars and culture and restaurants. In Taiwan, there are beds and good food. A lot of good food!”

“So, food is the treasure of Taiwan?” I asked. I was still thinking about the dumplings.

“Yes!” Dad said, and he and Mom laughed as if I had said something very funny. “Yes, it is! Food probably is one of the...