Yesterday we got this email from our social committee:
Huat ah!
Today is Friday and also the 9th day of Chinese New Year. The 9th day, as little may know, is the Hokkien New Year! Traditionally, Chinese New Year lasted for 15days. Too bad… we only got 2 days of public holidays. But it does not mean the celebration ends there.
Later in the afternoon at 3pm for the SSC (FTB, IR and HFS) and 4pm for NAV, Global and Support, kindly gather in the pantry at Level 5 to toss the Yu Sheng. Yu Sheng also known as Prosperity Toss is a common dish during Chinese New Year. It is where all diners at the table stand up and on cue, proceed to toss the shredded ingredients into the air with chopsticks while saying various “auspicious wishes” out loud. It is believed that the height of the toss reflects the height of the diner’s growth in fortunes, thus diners are expected to toss enthusiastically.
Since its Hokkien New Year and we are doing the “Prosperity Toss” and we need to shout out “auspicious wishes” out loud, lets all say “Huat ah!!”
“Huat” is a hokkien word, meaning prosperous. If you have problem pronouncing it, you can try to say “what ah”. The sound is similar. 🙂
So remember the timing, 3pm for SSC and 4pm for the rest of the world and most importantly, the Word of the day – “HUAT AH!”
So at a few minutes past 3, we all filed to the pantry and excitedly gathered around one of the many tables, brandishing chopsticks and readying our list of auspicious wishes in our heads. Farrah explained that we needed to mix everything up and that the fish is supposed to symbolize money. I further explained that someone told me from previous lo heis that aside from tossing the food high, you’re also supposed to say your wishes really loud, like, the higher you toss and the louder you wish, the more chances of winning. LOL.
And so we finally got the go signal to start, and toss we did, yell we did, and so enthusiastic were we that we made a huge mess. Hahaha. After that we made sure to eat a little bit of everything (it tastes like achara with ginger) especially of the fish and joked that the crackers represented the love life and we should eat lots and lots of those.
Cheers to prosperity but more importantly for me, happiness. Huat ah! 🙂
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