Chinese New Year: February 2015

One word: Variety. In Malaysia, other than traditional foods, we sometimes go back to basics – steamboat during Chinese New Year as it is simple and brings people together.

Here are some of the must-have ingredients during Chinese New Year (they are used in various recipes):

A dish that includes Abalone / Scallops / ‘Sharks’ Fin
A Meat dish (Chicken / Pork)
A Prawn dish
A Fish dish
A Veggie-filled dish
A noodle dish (long, uncut)
A Sweet dish (Tang Yuan, a glutinous rice dessert)

If you are in Malaysia, this dish would be a must-have:

Yee Sang or "Lou Sang" (Known as Spring Toss)

Yee Sang originated from South-East Asia, most likely from Malaysia, Singapore, or even both. Diners are to ‘toss’ the ingredients, which include raw fish such as smoked salmon, raw salmon or even jellyfish – they are the main element in the dish, accompanied with other crunchy tidbits.

If you are vegetarian, or simply aren’t fond of raw fish, vegetarian Yee Sang can be found in town. This ceremonial dish isn’t meant to fill you up. Here’s what you have to do prior to eating Yee Sang:

Pick up your chopsticks.
Toss the ingredients as high as you can.
Wish those around you all the very best in the years to come.
Enjoy!

Shark Fin Soup

Commonly found during Chinese events like wedding dinners. This dish is fast losing popularity due to environmental concerns. Usually, the soup is served with a mix of vinegar and / or green chilli pickles.

The soup base is either made of pork bones or seafood, and the soup consists of mushrooms, dry scallops and the star – shark’s fin. Back in the day, this dish symbolized wealth as only the rich could afford such a delicacy. In lieu of the real deal, ‘synthetic’ shark’s fins are sold to those who still want to enjoy the dish but are reluctant to harm the environment.

Luo Han Vegetables (罗汉斋)

Commonly found dish during the festive season. This dish contains different types of mushrooms, carrots, cabbage, fu zhok (beancurd sheet), corn and more. This dish symbolizes health and vitality.

Longevity Noodle

Made with looooong noodles, this is something that symbolizes longevity and is usually served with a mix of vegetables. This sure is one to fill those with a big appetite!

Steamed Fish

Fish symbolizes abundance in term of "there is always yields or extras at the end of every year" (nian nian you yu 年年有余).

The easiest way to go is steam fish, like the picture above, is a style known as "Hong Kong style steamed fish".

Braised Pork

Normally prepared with sea cucumber. This nourishing dish goes very well with the longevity noodles and Pork Belly is normally used for its three layers of meat – skin, lard and meat. Joining it are the Sea Cucumbers, which have a good medicinal effect. Together, the dish symbolizes happiness.

Chicken

This versatile white meat can be cooked many ways. Usually, it is served with its head and tail intact, a sign of completeness. The picture above is by steamed. There are BBQ chicken or baked chicken recipe throughout the places in Malaysia.

NOTE: if you plan to serve someone with this dish, never server the chicken head or tail to that person. To some people, it carries very bad metaphor meaning. Always serve the chicken breast.

Prawn

A variety of recipe. The prawn is also cooked in a multitude of ways. The picture above is the salted egg recipe for fried prawn. One of the signature dish in Malaysia. You would definitely not going to miss this.

Prawn represents laughter, derived by the Cantonese tone ("haha", which is laughter sound).

Reference

Images (from top to bottom)

http://cdn.lipstiq.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/fengshuiinn_6.jpg, viewed 7 Feb 2015
https://tastytouch.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/cny-yee-sang.jpg, viewed 7 Feb 2015
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/HvkMaYrIBT8/hqdefault.jpg, viewed 7 Feb 2015
http://food-4tots.com/2008/08/14/luo-han-zhai-1/, viewed 7 Feb 2015
http://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/longevity-noodles.html, viewed 7 Feb 2015
http://easycookinghealthyrecipes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Sea-Cucumber-Braised-Pork2-575x262.jpg, viewed 7 Feb 2015
http://www.followmefoodie.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Jade-Seafood-Chinese-New-Year-4.jpg, viewed 7 Feb 2015
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4052/4391067915_8482d1d28d.jpg. viewed 7 Feb 2015

Articles

http://www.friedchillies.com/articles/detail/where-yee-sang-came-from, viewed 7 Feb 2015
http://www.chopstickdiner.tk/index.php?m=recipe&c=show_recipe&recipe_id=63, viewed 7 Feb 2015
http://www.followmefoodie.com/2012/01/happy-chinese-new-year/, viewed 7 Feb 2015

Chinese New Year festival span across a minimal of 17 days in total. Each day represents a meaning and has its own activities.

Day	Descriptions
Before	Preparation Likely you'll find most people cleaning their house, in and out. You'll find many Chinese New Year merchandises are being sold during these days.
Eve	Reunion Dinner This day is also known as the family day. All descendants unite together at the eldest home among the living ancestry. If you're a tourist, there isn't much you can do except the usual tourism activities.
1st Day	Chinese New Year Day 1 First day of the event! Happy Chinese New Year. During this day, family gathered together for breakfast. Folks will not use any cleaning tools like broom etc due to such act represents "cleaning away your wealth and prosperity". That's a bad sign for most Chinese. The unity is happening at the father's side family. If there is any broken pots during this day, it represents a bad sign back in time. If you encounter such unforeseen event, try to calm down and mention "shui shui ping an" during that immediate moment. The goal is to change the energy back to positive and ensure happiness continues. If it's a mess, try to improvise by moving certain item to blockage. With the agreement to the host family (e.g. if the shards are hazardous), cleaning can then be done by the host. Hence, be careful when you're approaching to pottery or handling fragile items. Normally, most people will be very busy with relatives and family unity. You can allocate some time for yourself to visit malls or tourist spot (like famous Chinese temple Kek Lok Si in Penang of Fou Gang Shan in Jenjarom, Selangor).
2nd Day	Chinese New Year Day 2 Similar to 1st day celebration but this is for mother's side family. During this day, you'll see people performing long distance travels. Activities are the similar to 1st day. This is not yet a good time to make a visit for your Malaysian friends. Perhaps you cna visit any nearby shopping malls in the city. These malls are often decorated with lots of great decoration. Do drop-by and get a box of Mandarin (about 6 units) or bigger. If you're a married couple and are curious about the culture, well, you can source the "red pack" packets too. These are meant and standing by for your visit to your local friends. You should fill an amount of money into each of the red pack. The amount is based on your desire amount. Please ensure that the amount is undisclosed. Meanwhile, get some foods for tomorrow or ask your favorite restaurant(s) availability for tomorrow.
3rd Day	Day of Red Dog This is the day for staying at home. It’s considered not a good day as red dog symbolizes the prone to quarreling and creating conflict. You'll find most people are staying in the house and shops are closed, including most restaurants. Based on folklore, this is the day where one's speech can ignite unnecessary conflicts easily. For obvious reason, you should be very free. You can go for sight-seeing around the town and get to know the city. Due to the shop unavailability, ensure you know where to get your food or stockpile for this day.
4th Day	Day of Goat Praying for God of Kitchen and God of Fortune. This is the day where you'll see people are praying and cleaning the house (finally!). In the past, it was once said, should a boss wanted to retrench an employee, he'll will not invite him for this praying moment. This gives an metaphor meaning to that employee that he/she should start looking for new opportunities. Both God of Kitchen and God of Fortune symbolizes wealth and prosperity. You can join the taboo in the nearby, known famous temple subjected for their availability to public. You can start contacting your Malaysian friend and arrange time for visiting their house to exchange gifts and grab some red packs.
5th Day	Day of Po Wu Taboo broken day. This day is also marks as the God of Fortune day. Based on folklore, people casts away 5 deficits: intellectual deficit (智穷), knowledge deficit (学穷), wisdom deficit (文穷), life deficit (命穷) and networking deficits (交穷). This is the day you'll see people celebrate with large banquet, loud firecrackers, etc. Meantime, you'll find dumpling available across the market. These dumplings are said that they are meant to stuff the mouth for people with poor ethics, ensuring their mouth is always full and is not able to speak bad about you. Perhaps going into food hunting would be a good choice. From this day onward, depending on the agreed timing between you and your Malaysian friend, you can start visiting your friend's house. During the visit, please remember to exchange the gifts (mandarins) and with your host. If you're married and are interested to join the tradition, you're expected to give red pack to folks that are not married especially children. Similarly, married couple from your host will give red pack to your children. NOTE: if you're giving out red pack, ALWAYS remember that the pack should be filled with money. Giving red pack symbolizes your generosity to other. Therefore, giving out an empty red pack can bring undesirable perception onto you.
6th Day	Day of Horse This is the day known as "sending away Ghost of Poverty" and "God of Restroom". During this day, all trashes are being sent off from the premises. Loud firecrackers are being lighted. All restaurants and shops are open for business (first day of the year business). According to folklore, since it's the 6th day, the happiest person would be aged 12 children, since they're 6 x 6 =12, twice the wishes. Normally, shop owners would treat them. Shopping and restaurants are back to business. Please go ahead and explore them. Take extra attention to those goods that are prepared only for Chinese New Year's event.
7th Day	Day of Human Happy Birthday! This is the day of human creation by Nu Wa, arch-goddess from Chinese mythology. People wishes anyone "happy birthday". This is the day where all people should respect one another: no scolding to children, no #$%#$ to others. Try to look into the positive side of life. This is the day where you can simply just go off and wish anyone "Happy Birthday", the western way! You'll create happiness for the surrounding people.
8th Day	Day of Millet Millet is the staple food back in ancient China. This day marks as symbol as agriculture harvesting prosperity. According to folklore, this is the day where the dark sky is the clearest. It symbolizes another good harvesting year. If the sky becomes otherwise, it symbolizes additional countermeasure is needed. If the sky is the clearest, I guess star-gazing would be a good event. According to folklore, folks from nearby farm will educate their children on crops and agriculture. Perhaps going to places near to a rice farm would get you into some activities.
9th Day	Day of Jade Emperor The Heaven and Earth day according to Taoism. Lord Jade Emperor is the Supreme Deity in the Heaven dimension. Taoist folks perform praying to the Sky, Earth and Heaven. You'll find praying setup from houses to houses.
10th Day	Day of Stone God This is the birthday of Stone God. It is also marks as the day to celebrate the marriage of mouse. According to folklore, this is the day where respect to the stone brings prosperity in harvesting. Folks perform praying to any stone and are told that it's forbidden to cut any stone for this day. Otherwise, bad luck will happen. This event is not commonly seen in Malaysia celebration.
11th Day	Son-in-Laws Day, Day of Zi Gu This day is the son-in-laws day where father-in-law serves or entertain the son-in-law. Normally the foods are the balances from the festive season. This is also the day of welcoming the guardian angel Zi Gu for young lady and the day of dragon dance festival.
12th Day to 14th Day	Lantern Festival The day for lantern festival. These are the days where people are celebrating the festive season. During these days, house visiting are commonly done since it is still within the Chinese New Year time period. In Malaysia, if these days fall within the weekdays, you'll find people are slightly busy due to work environment but often house visiting to friends, teachers. If they're on the weekend, the visiting activities are intensified. Also, depends on legal availability, sometimes, you'll find folks playing firecrackers along the street.
15th Day	Chinese Valentine Day The last day of Chinese New Year Festival. This is the day where everyone is celebrating Chinese Valentine Day. For the couple, it has no differences compared to the western valentine day. However, for the singles, they may start looking for the other half through the "mandarin / banana" contact exchange. The event is commonly held in a pond or a pool. Young single lady writes their contact number on a mandarin and then cast the mandarin into the pond or pool. Interested young man may then pick the mandarin to contact his lucky lady. For some location, young man performs the same activity but it is onto a banana rather than a mandarin. This is to differentiate the gender for those who is interested in finding the other half.