Gather the loved ones and toss your way to a prosperous new year with lo hei, a convivial salad dish
Yusheng is a main feature for all Chinese New Year feasts. Also known as lo hei, which translates to ‘tossing upwards’ in Cantonese, this colourful raw fish salad is an emblem of prosperity: auspicious-sounding ingredients are first added, then thrown and mixed from a height to ring in good fortune. Fun as it sounds, the dish is just as delicious—and the significance behind it is equally interesting.
Humble beginnings
You’ll find yusheng commonly enjoyed in present-day households of Singapore and Malaysia, but the dish has its roots in China some 2,000 years back. People started eating raw fish slices during the Zhou dynasty, and the diaspora of the Chinese community—specifically the Cantonese and Teochew—brought this practice to our sunny shores. What was once typically enjoyed during the seventh day of