Yee Sang - CNY Tradition

Yee Sang - ?? - yúsh?ng - Raw Fish

Link: Yusheng - Wikipedia

Yee Sang ist eine Chinesisches Neues Jahr Tradition, die in Malaysia oder Singapur sehr verbreitet ist. Es ist ein Salat ähnliches Gericht, die rohes Fish oder Qualle enthält. Die wichtigste Tradition ist dass man die Zutaten mit Stäbchen zusammen mischen, und man muss sie mit den Stäbchen hoch heben. Je höher man hebt, desto mehr Wohlstand wird man im nächsten Jahr haben.

Yee Sang is another tradition that the malaysian chinese use to do during the CNY. For me it's something new that I learned and tasted in Malaysia. In Indonesia, well at least until now, I never heard nor read that word. In fact my friend in Indonesia who studied in Taiwan also didn't know about it.

Well... remembering the last year Chinese New Year (2005) in Malaysia, I just upload some pictures from the CNY Department Lunch, during my internship di Siemens Malaysia.

We went to a Halal Chinese restaurant, somewhere near our office, since some of the colleagues CIO are muslim.

We had 9 different kind of food, starting from Yee Sang as the opening menu until the chinese cakes as the dessert. Btw during the CNY the good words such as "Fortune", "Prosperity" can be found anywhere, including in our menu which had a "Fortune Jelly Fish Yee Sang" and "Prosperity CNY Pastries".

As you can see in the picture, Yee Sang consists of many different ingredients including fish. One thing is that the ingredients are prepared on the big plate unmixed. Because the most important part of this tradition is for us to mixed the ingredients together. Just use the chopsticks to take up and mix the ingredients. This lifting up process brings prosperity, and the higher you do it, the more prosperity you will get in the new year. (And the more to clean for the waitress of course)