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02/06/2008: "Yusheng"
mood: Hungry
Man, if there's one thing I really miss from home now that I'm studying overseas, it's the annual Chinese New Year celebrations. Just thinking of all the amazing Chinese New Year goodies is enough to make me drool (Peanut puffs! Pineapple tarts! Bak Kwa! *saliva dribbles*), not to mention how my materialistic side misses all the ang pows to be collected. :p
Anyway, was talking to my parents on the phone, and since today's Chinese New Year Eve, they were telling me about how they had celebrated it with the usual extended family (on my mom's side) dinner. We usually have a big family dinner every CNY eve since the first two days of CNY are usually reserved for CNY visits - both visiting and being visited. (As us kids have grown older, the number of places we visit have decreased and nowadays we usually get visited instead. In a way it's good since it's less tiring, but at the same time it's gotten a bit more boring.) When I brought up the fact that my friends and I had considered the idea of celebrating CNY by making Yusheng (aka Lo Hei), my parents chipped in with some great ideas on how to substitute alot of the ingredients that would be harder to find over here, and now I'm REALLY tempted to go ahead with making one. Lo Hei's always been one of my favourite parts of the annual CNY dinner since it's loads of fun, though I actually never really liked the taste of it when I was a kid (I would mostly just pick out and only eat the crackers) although I'm liking it better as I get older. (I think it's the dressing that was the problem, I've never been a fan of sour things. That and the fact that I used to loathe vegetables, which is what the dish is mostly made out of.)
Whilst searching for Yusheng recipes, I was really surprised to find out that it's actually a recently modern Singaporean invention! And here I'd assumed it was a tradition Chinese dish harking back to the really old days; that's how entrenched it's become in my annual Chinese New Year celebrations. (We have a family one at least once every year, and sometimes when we get invited to restaurants we do it there too.) In fact, it's with some glee that I read about how the Yusheng tradition was "imported" to other places like Malaysia and Hong Kong; having previously never imagined it to have originated in my tiny little country, the smug Singaporean in me likes the idea that we've had a noticeable influence elsewhere in the world. *laughs* (Especially since those who know me know that I often bemoan the fact that Singapore seems to have so little influence on the rest of the world and not many people know about us. :p)
For those who don't know what Yusheng is, you can check out the Wikipedia entry or read my following attempt at a short description which as per my long-windedness has ballooned. :p Check out also this page for pictures of what Yusheng looks like, though the latter pictures are of unique variations of the dish. There's also this page with a picture of what Yusheng looks like before being mixed.
Yusheng aka Lo Hei is basically a huge dish of raw fish salad that's served as an appetiser of sorts before the main CNY dinner itself, and is meant to be a good start to the new year by symbolising the (expected) abundance to come. The various ingredients are all placed on one dish and are kept separate from each other, and the ingredients mostly consist of shredded vegetables with some raw fish and some dressing. Everyone gathers around the dish and with each person having their own pair of chopsticks, they then proceed to "toss" the salad (this is where the other name of Lo Hei comes from, which very roughly translated means "to toss",and so refers more to the actual dish+process involved whereas Yusheng is more for the name of the dish itself), whilst at the same time shouting out good-luck Chinese sayings/phrases and/or yelling out their wishes for the new year. So it wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to say that you could possibly have lots of amusingly contrasting stuff being said like "May your fortunes be as bountiful as the Eastern Sea!" whilst another person yells out "I want to get 10As for my O' levels!" XD
Also, since my family believes that we should try tossing the ingredients as high as possible, it's not too uncommon to have little bits of food accidentally dropping on the table and for once that's actually not frowned upon since that gives the impression of abundance. (i.e. there's so much food that it's literally spilling off the plate.) In fact, we aren't really supposed to clean of the plate either since you're meant to leave a little bit behind to add to the idea of abundance.
My mom also reminded me of how it's actually also common to say certain set good-luck phrases even during the set up of the dish as you add each different ingredient; apparently my sis had searched up the list of stuff you were meant to say but unfortunately my aunt who was making the dish didn't realise my sis wanted to do that, and had already prepared it in advance. I'm tempted to go look up the phrases myself so that my friends and I can do it if we do decide to make our pseudo-Lo Hei. :D
So the plan is to do Lo Hei with my friends tomorrow. It's funny how I never really thought about how I would celebrate CNY this year but now that it's here and now that I've got the idea of making Yusheng stuck in my head I'm REALLY excited and can't want to start. I'll probably be blogging about it at a later date, especially since there's something I would like to blog about but can't just yet due to a certain reason I'll like to keep secret till tomorrow. Hopefully I'll actually have honest-to-goodness pictures up with the upcoming entry too! :D