Tossing the salad, quite a different meaning :)

Chinese New Year is around the corner.

Now, for those of not in Asia, this is huge. :)
My mom's side (she's chinese) did the family Reunion Dinner last night and you'll find chinese families all over the world rushing home for this. In Mainland China, thousands of migrant workers are stuck in bad weather, stranded in train and bus stations, because of this yearly trip home. But that's another story.

This is mine.

We didn't have to brave blizzards to get to the Singapore Recreation Club, only an irritating taxi driver who wouldn't stop jabbering and the weekend traffic crush getting into the city, so I shan't complain about that. Heh. But we did get there 40 minutes late. What a bugger.

Anyways, what I REALLY wanted to share was the lo hei, also called yu sheng. It's probably the only thing about Chinese New Year that's uniquely Singaporean. You get a bunch of ingredients that symbolise a whole list of things based on the way the words sound. You put some ceremony into it, and every one joins in the mixing for the heck of it. And boy, it's grown.

Supposedly a dish that originated from Jiangmen, a chinese province, 4 local chefs decided to get together and standardize the dish in 1963. Yeah, that's the Singapore spirit, all right. lol.

It was introduced in the chef's respective restaurants and it just... well... developed. Here's the list of things :
Raw fish - which represented abundance
Peanuts - for eternal youth
Peanut crumbs - for a household lined in gold and silver
Plum sauce - for a sweet life ahead
Crackers - usually puffed crackers aka Golden Pillows for wealth
Lemons or Limes - for a fruitful year ahead
And oil - for glistening wealth

Yeah... can you see the Chinese pre-occupation for wealth? lol. Anyways, here's the variation we had last night.

What it really is.. is loads of salad. Erm. Mostly radish and carrots, I think. But the thing is, you had to say out some special phrases as the dish is prepared, so I think the waitress had her stuff down pat. Don't know if you can hear her, but it looked like this.


And then, when it was all lying there, and ready to be tossed, we got stuck in! Now, the shared tossing of the Yu Sheng was special. You have to toss it all together, and you have to toss it as high as possible. The higher the better. And yes, the mess is part of that. lol. But all in the name of good spirits.


Yes, that's my sister at the end of the vid... Here she is again with my sister in law, Regina :)

It was pretty good... all in... Tried to snap pics of the dishes as the rest of the meal was served but it was pretty crowded and sorry, they all turned out blurry. But this one turned out good! That's the CBD area all aglow.

Actually, you may find it interesting to note that the round glow on the right is actually City Hall. It's now officially a preserved buuilding, back from the days when Singapore was a colony of ye olde british empire. But she looks great at night :)

So there you go.... finally. Something Singaporean!