This week, Chinese people around the world will inaugurate the Year of the Ox with family and friends, lucky meals and customs designed to bring fortune after a tumultuous year.
In tightly controlled Singapore, the government lets the festivities move forward during a Covid era, but its leaders implore the nation to be restrained when it verbalizes Chinese New Year phrases or risks fines and imprisonment.
According to the country’s recently updated legal statutes, it is not allowed to “emphatically utter auspicious sayings” in restaurants, which mark a popular ritual called “Lo-Hei,” a Cantonese phrase meaning to throw good fortune.
Common in Singapore and Malaysia, the custom centers around a dish called Yusheng which is a mixture of crushed vegetables, canned fruit, raw fish, crunchy strips and condiments. As ingredients and condiments are added, the people gathered around the dish demand abundance, love, professional success, and good grades. The group then uses chopsticks to mix and toss the ingredients into the air to announce the new year with more cordial wishes, in what is usually a boisterous and messy affair.
In the run-up to the Year of the Ox, which begins on February 12, residents of the Chinese ethnic group — representing the majority of Singapore’s 5.7 million population — tend to eat multiple with the colorful dish.