Chinese New Year in New Zealand

Yu Sheng (Raw Fish Salad)

This is the first year we are away from home during Chinese New Year (CNY) celebrations. So how did we celebrated CNY in New Zealand? It was a quiet affair for us since we do not have any family in Wanganui, and CNY is not a public holiday here.

If we had been in Auckland, which has a large number of ethnic Chinese, there would be more to do. I did an internet search and found that Auckland has a lantern festival to mark the occasion, lion dances etc. Given the numerous Chinese supermarkets and restaurants up in the City of Sails, buying traditional goodies and eating festive foods would have been relatively easy. Not so where we are... so we had to make do.

Tradition calls for a reunion dinner on the eve of the Lunar New Year when everyone one returns to their family. In China and where-ever there is a large ethnic Chinese population, there would be an exodus of people in the days leading up to the New Year. The tables would be laden with festive dishes with auspicious names such as Guaranteed Abundance (Bao Yu or abalone), Good Fortune and Wealth (Ho See Fatt Choy - a dish made up of braised dried oysters and black fungus). There must be so much food that leftovers are guaranteed. To have insufficient food would be inauspicious. Since I had pretty busy work schedule right up to the eve, I was pretty tired by Saturday, Feb 13th. To compound it, we had signed up for a Cheese making course at the Community Education Services locally and it was a full day’s affair on Saturday (CNY eve), which meant we did not have time or energy to cook up traditional goodies. That evening, we just had our own reunion dinner with a good piece of porterhouse steak and a simple salad with fresh veggies from our garden. On Chinese New Year’s day, we had a wonderful time Skype-ing with all the family back in SG and we ate crunchy snacks, drank a delicious chilled white wine to accompany a tasty Insalata Caprese made with Mozarella from the Cheese School. Too bad we missed out on "ang pows" (little red envelopes with money) by not being able to visit family.

Yu Sheng (raw fish) is one of those festive dishes that seem to turn up in every chinese restaurant in Singapore during CNY. Since we had been invited to a BBQ that evening, we said we would bring a salad. Our Kiwi friends (bless them) knew it was CNY and thought it would be a good idea to help us celebrate! Moreover they were intrigued by the idea of a communal salad toss up. That afternoon, we put together a home made “yu sheng”, using carrots, cucumber, red peppers (instead of yam strips), cabbage (instead of daikon) and topped it with crispy noodles and Cheezels (the cheezels looking like old fashioned gold coins). Smoked Salmon was used as the "raw fish". Little zip locs of pepper, five spice powder, crushed peanuts, plum sauce and peanut oil completed the portable feast. We brought this colourful platter to our Kiwi friend’s house.

The toppings were then sprinkled onto the salad after each item was introduced with auspicious sayings. Everyone had a great time tossing the salad, shouting greetings and wishes for good health, wealth and fortune. It was done with such enthusiasm that we were in danger of losing the salad onto the floor!

Tossing Yu Sheng

The Lo Hei Yu Sheng Ritual, (as far as I can gather from the Internet):
Step 1: All gather at the table, offer New Year Greetings.
Words: Gong Xi Fa Cai (Congratulations for your wealth) or Wan Shi Ru Yi (May all your wishes be fulfilled)

Step 2: Raw Fish (in our case, cold smoked salmon) symbolising abundance is added
Words: Nian nian you yu ( may every year have abundance)

Step 3: Pomelo (or ruby grapefruit segments for us) is added, with the words: Da ji da Li (not sure what this means)

Step 4: Pepper and Five Spice powder are sprinkled over: Words Zhao Cai Jin Bao

Step 5: Peanut oil is poured out circling the ingredients (to increase profits and encouraging money to flow in from all directions)

Step 6: Chopped peanuts are sprinkled over symbolising gold and silver in the house

Step 7: Sesame seeds, representing flourishing business is also sprinkled over.

Step 8: Crispy noodles (and Cheezels in our case) are then added with wishes that literally the whole floor be covered with gold.

Step 9: Everyone tosses the salad with chopsticks shouting new year greetings and wishes for good health, striking lottery, good health, promotion or whatever else seems desirable and good.

An Abundance of Good Food

The BBQ dinner was a feast, the dinner table groaning with an abundance of food. Everyone had a wonderful evening - laughing, eating (too much), enjoying a good chat and each other's company. So if you asked me how it compared with celebrations in Singapore? As someone has so aptly put it - same same but different la.. Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone!