Synopsis:
A jade bean travels through a century, appearing and disappearing in dumplings on Lunar New Year's Eve.
In 1924, wrapped in the sweetness of maltose, it was hidden in ten-year-old Wang Huachun's hopes during the Kitchen God Festival. In 1937, it lay in a coin dumpling in a basement in occupied territory, witnessing a family driven from place to place as they struggled to survive. In 1950, beneath the first Spring Festival couplets of the People's Republic of China, it felt the fiery spirit of "honorable labor." In 1967, at a New Year's Eve dinner of meat stewed over a coal stove, it silently withstood the bitter cold of the times.
From the cooking smoke along Qushuiting Street in Jinan's old city to the weightless growing chambers of a Mars base; from the premiere of the Spring Festival Gala before a black-and-white television to the endless echoes of algorithms in the data ocean. The lives of four generations of the Wang family unfold, shift, and reunite around the New Year's Eve dinner table.
This is not just a story about celebrating the New Year, but about wishing one another a happy New Year: how, through war, separation, upheaval, and the journey toward the stars, people still raise their glasses, gather around the table, and remember to tuck something hard inside a dumpling, whether it's a coin praying for peace or a jade bean that transmigrated through time.
Happy New Year is a century-long journey: toward the warmth of a bowl of dumplings, toward the promise of a jade bean, and toward the stubborn tenderness of saying "Happy New Year" no matter where you are or what era you live in.
