Making dumplings is often a whole-family event. Lots of people sit around a table together. Someone makes the dough, someone else cooks the filling, and then everybody helps to wrap. Each person folds the dumplings their own way - some make them round and plump, some pleated like little fans.
Dumplings are especially important at Lunar New Year. Their shape is said to look like an old kind of Chinese money - a small silver ingot. Eating them on New Year's Eve is supposed to bring good luck and wealth for the year ahead.
Different parts of China have very different dumplings. In the north, where it is colder, people eat boiled jiaozi with meaty fillings. Further south, you find tiny soup dumplings called xiaolongbao, with hot broth hidden inside them, and bigger steamed buns called baozi.
Dumplings are eaten with chopsticks, dipped in a little bowl of sauce - usually soy sauce, vinegar and ginger. There is even a polite way to do it: hold the chopsticks gently, lift the dumpling, dip it once, and pop it into your mouth in one bite (or two if it is a big one).