Local festive 'traditions'

I saw in the news last night this feature about the yu sang/yu sheng/raw fish dish being a 'tradition' for the 7th day ('Day For Human Beings') of the Lunar New Year. However, over the past few years, my very unscientific survey of a handful of people from the PRC and HK shows that it isn't a Chinese 'tradition' because these people never heard of it until they came to Singapore.

Of course, I draw this conclusion based on the assumption that Lunar New Year 'traditions' must be 'Chinese' in nature. Then again, what does it mean to be 'Chinese'...

In fact, many of our new year 'traditions' are pretty much localised ones and since we still consider ourselves 'Chinese', I guess they do qualify as 'traditions'. After all, we are not from China anyway, what. So who says there is no Singapore culture?

FOOD!

Raw fish

I found this in Khoo Joo Ee's The Straits Chinese: 'The Cantonese in particular celebrate the birthday of Man on the seventh day by eating salad with raw freshwater fish... The food is symbolic, the salad being a sign of something living and fresh... Eating this salad means that Man will stay alive and alert for the whole year until he is rejuvenated by the cycle of rituals the following year.'

Aha! Since our friends from Guangzhou and HK only learnt about yu sang here although they are from Cantonese lands, the roots of this dish must be in this region and not China (unscientific conclusion).

Bak kwa

According to this website, bak kwa is also a traditional Chinese thing. Well, I don't know what form it took in China in those days but I've not seen bak kwa as we know it, the Bee Chun Heng type, in China. Except where sold at Bee Chun Heng outlets!

New year 'goodies'

In other words 'kueh'. By which name one can tell that they did not originate from China. I remember my home econs teacher said that the recipe for kueh baulu (spelling?) is the same as the one for swiss roll (except that the baking is different - don't ask me if it's true because I never baked swiss roll after Sec 2 and have never made kueh baulu in my life). So it can't be a Chinese thing. And neither can pineapple tarts, kueh bangkit, kueh belanda and the rest of them.

(picture source and recipe!)

WEATHER

Although this is the Spring Festival, the weather during Lunar New Year in Singapore never makes you think it's spring time (not in China this year either). I can't quite remember any Lunar New Year when it rained. The weather is invariably hot and therefore we almost expect people to get sore throats, coughs, the flu, or to lose their voices due to the potent combination of weather, food, mandarin oranges and soft drinks. I believe orange juice, the non-freshly-squeezed type, is a favourite culprit that is fingered when children start coughing during the new year.

BAD DRIVING

It is also during the new year when you will see more than the usual number of people driving in a confused or reckless manner. And my guess is they are not even drunk. Just inconsiderate. You have people cruising at a (very) leisurely pace, never mind that they are on the right lane, looking both left and right for their relatives' house/block/road. Then, you also have cars darting from the left lane to the right, or the other way around, because they just spotted the road they have to turn into. This year, I saw a car stop (not a breakdown) right smack in the middle lane at the traffic junction, even though the light was green. Can you imagine that? Cars were driving past on the left and right of this car, as is normal when the light is green, and the car just stopped there, in the middle of everything, while the driver took bearings.

WATCHING MOVIES
As far as I know, the original tradition is to visit or to receive visitors. But I do know that the festive season here is also a season for avid cinema-visiting, and nowadays also museum-going (free admission) and probably going wherever else there is free admision or special lunar new year promotions and such.

GAMBLING

Mahjong and other allegedly 'harmless' gambling goes on, as we all know, resulting in people giving away more ang pows than they actually plan to. In time to come, not only will people be going to the cinemas and museums but they will also be visiting the... ahem... IRs during the new year. Want to bet?