Happy Birthday Everybody!

Happy Birthday to everyone!

Yes, I really mean it... everybody is a year older TODAY! (well... this is according to our Chinese lunar calendar... :D)

Anyway, today is the 7th day of Chinese New Year, also known as 'Yan Yat' (People's Day or Common Man's Birthday).

According to Wikipedia:
The seventh day, traditionally known as renri 人日, the common man's birthday, the day when everyone grows one year older. It is the day when tossed raw fish salad, yusheng, is eaten.

This is a custom primarily among the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia and Singapore. People get together to toss the colorful salad and make wishes for continued wealth and prosperity.

Of the recent years, this yusheng dish has been more and more popular, sometimes, days before we started celebrating Chinese New Year, we would have already toss this raw fish salad to celebrate the coming CNY festival. Now, this is what a yusheng looks like:
Yusheng , yee sang or yuu sahng (simplified Chinese: 鱼生; pinyin: yúshēng), also known as lo hei (Cantonese for 撈起 or 捞起) is a Teochew-style raw fish salad.

It usually consists of strips of raw fish (most commonly salmon), mixed with shredded vegetables and a variety of sauces and condiments, among other ingredients.

Yusheng literally means "raw fish" but since "fish (鱼)" is commonly conflated with its homophone "abundance (余)", Yúshēng (鱼生) is interpreted as a homophone for Yúshēng (余升) meaning an increase in abundance. Therefore, yusheng is considered a symbol of abundance, prosperity and vigor. While versions of it is thought to have existed in China, the contemporary version is created and popularised in Singapore in the 1960s amongst the ethnic Chinese community and its consumption has been associated with Chinese New Year festivities in Singapore as well as in neighbouring Malaysia.

So again, I wish you all Happy Birthday, one year older, one year wiser! :D