Har Gow 蝦餃 and Dim Sum

In traditional Chinese, har gow is written as  蝦餃. In simplified Chinese, it is written as  虾饺. Har gow is just one way of spelling this dumpling. Common other phonetic spellings and transliterations are ha gow and har gau, xia jiao, hark au, har gao, ha gau, har gaw, hark aw, ha kaw, ha gaau, har gaau, or har cow. The first character of har gow (the “har” or “xia” or ha”) directly translates as “shrimp” in Chinese. The second character, “jiao” or “gow”, translates to the English word “dumpling”.  Har gow may also be called a “shrimp bonnet” because of its pleated shape.