Spring Festival Eve dinners around China

Wuhan, Central Chin's Hubei province

Sticky mariko

Fried sticky rice balls. [Photo by Zheng Jinqiang/Asianewsphoto]

Deng Xin, a 23-year-old studying at Beijing Language and Culture University, said that it's fun to make individual balls of roughly consistent size wrapped with sticky rice, and then finally frying and steaming them.

"Yuanzi (the Chinese pronunciation of the dish) always represents our best wishes for Tuanyuan, 'family reunion' in Chinese. In our school there are a great many foreigners and I will invite foreign friends to my hometown to have an authentic taste of the Sticky mariko some day," said Deng.