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第一个冬天特别冷。我们住在皇后区的一个地下室，暖气时有时无，晚上睡觉要穿着毛衣。

The first winter was bitterly cold. We lived in a basement in Queens. The heat came and went, and we slept in our sweaters.

你爷爷在中餐馆洗碗，我在制衣厂做工，一天做十个钟头。下班坐地铁回家，常常在车上就睡着了。

Your grandfather washed dishes in a Chinese restaurant, and I worked in a garment factory, ten hours a day. Riding the subway home, I often fell asleep on the train.

那年过年，我们买不起什么，就包了一锅饺子，请了楼上的邻居一起吃。那是我在美国过的第一个年。

That New Year we couldn’t afford much, so we made a pot of dumplings and invited the neighbors from upstairs. It was my first New Year in America.

我是在浙江嘉兴乡下长大的，村子叫陈家浜，村口有一条河，夏天我们就在河里摸螺蛳。

I grew up in the countryside outside Jiaxing, in Zhejiang. The village was called Chenjiabang. There was a river at the edge of it, and in summer we waded in to catch river snails.

家里有五个孩子，我排老三。哥哥十六岁就去上海当学徒了，走的那天妈妈一句话也没说，只是给他煮了两个鸡蛋。

There were five of us children, and I was the third. My older brother left for Shanghai at sixteen to be an apprentice. The day he left, Mother didn’t say a word. She just boiled him two eggs.

我们家的饺子是白菜猪肉馅的，白菜要先切碎、撒盐、挤干水，这样包出来才不会出汤。

Our family’s dumplings are pork and napa cabbage. You chop the cabbage, salt it and squeeze out the water first, so the filling doesn’t turn soupy.

年三十晚上全家一起包，我妈妈会在一个饺子里包一枚硬币，谁吃到了，谁这一年就有好运气。

On New Year’s Eve the whole family made them together. My mother hid a coin in one dumpling, and whoever found it would have good luck all year.