Yee Sang – From the Time the World and Malaya Were Young

By A. Najib Ariffin - Nadge

“Do you know yee sang, the veggie dish with raw fish?” I asked breathlessly as I went around China in my research visit years ago. When the person I asked didn’t speak English, I switch to Chinese, which makes it worse. Although I’m part Chinese, my Mandarin is almost non-existent, as my street dialect is Cantonese and even then my tones are tortured.

“So, do you know yee sang?” The best answer I get is a puzzled, “You mean like sushi?”

Well, that trip established it: the dish of raw fish and mixed chopped veggies and sauces that we Malaysians and Singaporeans take for granted during Chinese New Year was NOT common in China. Not even on the 7^th day of CNY as it traditionally was served in Malaysia.

So where does the yee sang we know today come from? No doubt a million people in at least two countries. Malaysia and Singapore, have been asking that. I just had to satisfy our need for an answer. After all, my father is Malaysian while my mother is Singaporean, and of Chinese descent to boot.

So I began asking… My Chinese grandmother in Singapore had dismissed it, as she is one of the few northerners among Sino-descendants in Southeast Asia; (“We northerners are nobles, different from southerners”). Okay but that in fact said something; at least I knew yee sang was definitely NOT of northern Chinese origin. So I headed south.

Southern China’s Guangdong province was the one place where a few people knew of yee sang (and where I could speak the Cantonese dialect!). Good, especially in Hong Kong with its more worldly restaurants. But surprise, surprise; many of those who knew it said it’s a modern import from Malaysia-Singapore! Back to square one.

Sure, maybe the modern version of yee sang as we know it really IS from Southeast Asia. But maybe there were roots, some earlier version of it hidden in a corner of China somewhere? I made some last tries and trials in the name of food. Finally a Mr. Cheng said that some communities of coastal southern China do have a raw fish type of dish. Where exactly?

The southeastern Chinese cities of Chaozhou and Shantou are located in the northeastern part of the province of Guangdong (Canton in English). Yet the people in this locality are NOT ethno-linguistically Cantonese. A localised pronunciation of Chaozhou is in fact Teochew, and that’s where some clues start to appear on where a raw fish dish originated.

Before that, let’s go further back in Chinese history and mythology. It is said that the goddess Nuwa (or Nuwo) created man from clay and mud on the 7^th day in the first month of the year.

Thus on the 7^th day of Chinese New Year people would celebrate Renri or the People’s birthday with a dish of raw meat called kuài (膾). I suppose raw meat was symbolic of the early naked humankind. Eventually raw fish became preferred, possibly because fish is an abundant creature of the waters from where mythology equates with life, as well as practically for the coastal Chinese such as in Chanzhou area and Guangdong as a whole the region was rich in seafood. What better way for them to celebrate than with their abundant raw fish symbolizing this birth of life.

Queries seem to show that the dish was more popular in the Teochew people’s Chaoshan region that must have also been spread to or shared with the coastal Cantonese in Guangdong province as a whole, especially in the port city of Jiangmen further south.

Shantou is the bigger sister port downriver from Chaozhou city; combined they make the Chaoshan region. Shantou city is also prominent in 19^th century Chinese history. It was then called Swatow, one of the ‘treaty ports’ that the colonial West used to exploit China, and was ceded to British concession in 1858. That was an Age of Turmoil in Chinese history. Meanwhile just a year earlier Kuala Lumpur had been opened by Raja Abdullah; and with its rich tin mines it began an immigration pull factor in which one of the results later became… yee sang in Malaysia. How?

Throughout the early mid-19^th to the early 20^th centuries China was facing its Age of Turmoil, especially in coastal China with the meddling of Western powers, the Opium Wars, rebellions and conflicts. Certainly turmoil did not escape Guangdong, including Chanzhou prefecture and to the Teochew and Cantonese in that era.

And so, like many other southern Chinese regional and dialect groups such as the Hokkiens, Hakkas and Hainanese, the Teochews and Cantonese migrated in significant numbers to the relatively peaceful and abundant lands of the Nanyang or the Southern Ocean, where Southeast Asia was located. One of the main ports of transshipment and departure to the Nanyang was Guangdong province’s port of Jiangmen, which gives another clue to Malaysia-Singapore’s yee sang origins.

The Teochews spread to Siam, the Malay Peninsula’s Penang and Johor states and Singapore next door as well as parts of Indonesia such as in Pontianak and Ketapang. Johor Bahru was even nicknamed “Little Swatow” because so many Teochews congregated there.The other group with raw fish dish cultural memories, the Cantonese, settled largely in the Malay Peninsula’s west coast and a few in Singapore. With that we begin to see a commonality and pattern of why yee sang came up in Malaysia-Singapore and not, say, in Thailand or Indonesia as well.

The Chinese as a whole brought with them their ancestral culture including beliefs, dialects, lifestyle and of course, cuisine. In the earlier years their aim was to make money and bring it back to China; culture was not a main concern. But as Chinese numbers increased and life in Southeast Asia was good; people began to stay permanently and raise families; and so culture began to be more and more practiced.

By after World War II, some Teochew and Cantonese families in Malaya (especially on the west coast down to some Johor Teochews; Singapore geographically included) began reviving the ancestral cultural memories of a raw fish dish that was eaten together at the meal table over Chinese New Year, especially on the 7^th day in honour of the goddess Nuwa and the human birthday Renri. [For this part onward of my research I thank the kind older Chinese residents in Subang Jaya where my parents live for sharing their yee sang reminiscences.]

Let’s take a look at the yee sang name, which helps give further clues as to how it came about. The dish was mainly raw fish. Vegetables were somewhat limited then using only carrot and turnip mixed with some oil, vinegar and a sweetener such as even sugar.

That was how the name yee sang or the official version yú shēng (鱼生) meaning “fish basic-life” or figuratively “raw fish” came into being in the first place. The word “fish” (鱼) is commonly associated with its homonym "abundance" (余). Thus yú shēng (鱼生) is correlated as a homophone sound for yu sheng (余升) meaning “abundance increasing".

By comparison it could not be, say, from the Hakka because in their dialect it would be “ng sang” (ng for fish) and what’s more “ng” is considered a bad omen. Definitely not an auspicious dish to start the Chinese New Year! So we must go back to the Teochews and Cantonese.

To a certain extent the raw fish and raw vegetables as ingredients were also dictated by practical considerations in the early days. By the end of the first week of Chinese New Year, the huge amount of food prepared before the celebrations would be only leftovers. Yet households were too tired to cook more sophisticated dishes.

Meanwhile leftover fish and vegetables that had been kept, needed to be consumed soon. The fish, while still fresh, would have softened by then and would be tasty just raw. That’s what happened with the Melanau fishermen’s umai dish, which is fish stripped up and eaten raw cured just with lime juice after a few days still at sea.

Whatever vegetables that were available in the kitchen would start to look less fresh too. So, in the same vein as the Malay kerabu dishes, just cut and chop up all your vegetables in strips so it would look fresh and fine, while any of the veggie parts turning bad can be cut away and discarded.

There are also personal anecdotes of stalls in Malaya selling yee sang-type raw fish mixes as side dishes meant to be shared with “Teochew moi” (Teochew-style porridge), and that the stall-holders had come via the Cantonese port of Jiangmen.

This mix of strips of raw fish and whatever shredded vegetables plus really anything else you like from noodles to crackers to sauces gave rise to another opportunity for auspiciousness. It’s something that is quite uniquely Cantonese; “lo hei” (撈起 or 捞起 in Cantonese). The “lo hei” activity mixes the words and homophone meanings for mix, toss and rise or high as everyone around the table merrily joins in. What a perfect combo of action and expression for a mix of “raising prosperity, abundance and happiness” for everyone present as they’re mixing and tossing the ingredients together.

Older people remember that this yee sang dish and the accompanying “lo hei” custom began spreading through Cantonese and Teochew households up and down Peninsular Malaya’s west coast for Chinese New Year.

Ever enterprising, the Cantonese began offering yee sang in restaurants for Chinese New Year menus from the 1950s. It was not as common or as elaborate as it is now. But it was found in places where there were concentrations of Cantonese, Teochews or any Chinese business activities, including in Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh and southwards but not so much north and none on the east coast.

Yee sang was available in food outlets only after the Chinese New Year holidays, usually the 7^th day, when restaurants reopened and the dish became a starter at business meals for “patrons to raise good luck for the forthcoming year”. In the 1950s branding was still not a huge thing for restaurants and dishes, so no-one bothered to brand or even record these for posterity. Besides, it was still very much a family and business partners’ specialty dish kind of item.

But something happened in 1952 that began to bring yee sang into the culinary awareness in Malaya. In that year, UMNO and MCA formed the Alliance to contest the Kuala Lumpur Municipal Council elections in February, which they won. Note that it was just around the corner of the Chinese New Year season.

What better way for Alliance partners to celebrate over an auspicious shared meal!

For Malays, yee sang was fine as it’s perfectly halal, being fish and vegetables, while Malay and Melanau fishermen for example were no strangers to lime-cured raw fish (dipped in sambal of course). And any possible misgivings about it being a “Chinese” food never arose, as the Malays simply saw it as a form of their own traditional kerabu salad dish that was just mixed with any keropok or whatever you wanted, and tossed up together in the spirit of muhibbah in the new year. Yee sang was thus also “kerabu tahun baru”, if you please.

After all, the symbolisms of mixing and raising the ingredients for prosperity and sharing the food for harmony are happily universal. (A similar concept applied with the Malay “nasi talam” where wedding guests share four to a large plate or tray called talam.)

From then on, yee sang became a popular Malayan / Malaysian staple each Chinese New Year with more ingredients added or variegated according to the restaurant or chef, or even the matriarch at family gatherings as well as politicians at coalition meal meetings.

Meanwhile Singapore puts its earliest commercially available yee sang in 1964, while it was still part of Malaysia, with the collaboration of four restaurant cooks. That’s perfectly fine, true and correct for Singapore.

For Malaysia, the Malaysians tossed yee sang up earlier. LO HEI!!

[This article was researched for and first appeared in Friedchillies.com under Gastropology 101 on food history in 2010]  
http://www.friedchillies.com/articles/category/gastropology-101 

TV shoot for my interview on #CapitalTV 2015 Chinese New Year special show on the #YeeSang research I did for #Friedchillies.com — at China Treasures, Sime Darby Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur

It's Thaipusam - so I'll post something 1Malaysia

Thaipusam is a well-known Hindu festival that’s freely celebrated in Malaysia and reflects the diversity and harmony of this great country.

Stories abound on the history of Thaipusam, so here're some that I've learned from Hindu friends and my own reading... The festival is said to commemorate both the birthday of Lord Murugan (or Muruga and also known as Lord Subramaniam), the youngest son of Lord Shiva and Parvathi, and the occasion when Parvathi - a powerful goddess in her own right - gave Murugan a vel (lance) so he could vanquish the evil demon Soorapadman and his large army which were plaguing the world.

Thaipusam also coincides with a full moon day in the auspicious 10th Tamil month of Thai when the constellation of Pusam, the star of wellbeing, rises over the eastern horizon.

In Kuala Lumpur, the festival is celebrated on a mammoth scale at the Batu Caves temple on the city's northern outskirts. It began in 1892, started by early Tamils who migrated to colonial Malaya. Reportedly two of them climbed up the ancient limestone hill known as Gua Batu (Batu Caves) to the local Malay and Orang Asli aboriginals, and planted the vel in the cave. Made of metal and shaped like a lance, the vel symbolises Murugan the protector.

The huge Batu cave interior, the size of a soccer field and more, now houses several Hindu temples or shrines, with a special one dedicated to Lord Murugan. The huge cave is even likened to a natural cathedral space.

Batu Caves, especially during Thaipusam, are included and marked on the “Must-See List” for tourists in most literature about unique things to visit in Malaysia. Tourists always remark positively how amazing that a Hindu temple complex harmoniously occupies a major caves system in Islamic-majority Malaysia.

To many Hindus, Thaipusam is the day of thanksgiving or atonement for wrongs. To this end, a structure called kavadi (translated as “burden”), some simple and some spectacular, are often carried or pulled by the devotees with chains and ropes anchored in the skin of their backs or chests. Over the years, curious Western medical experts have speculated that the white ash smeared on the body, the juice squeezed from the yellow lime fruit and the milk poured on the pierced areas may help to numb the skin. The more extreme kavadi practices have been cautioned by some as dangerous and even contrary to the spirit and requirements of Hinduism.

This festival attracts over a million people each year at the by-now famous Batu Caves near Kuala Lumpur, the grounds of which presently house various Hindu temples and shrines, as well as the 42.7meter high statue of Lord Murugan that was unveiled in January 2006. As the caves are high up, just as traditionally the abode of Muruga is a hill or mountain, pilgrims and visitors need to climb a whopping 272 steps to reach the mouth of the caves.

Thaipusam has since evolved and grown so greatly in Malaysia that it has now far outsized similar celebrations even in India. For example, during Visit Malaysia Year 2007, the Thaipusam celebration was the biggest yet with an estimate of some 1.5 million devotees and tourists converging at Batu Caves, with possibly more than 10,000 kavadi bearers.

A fireworks display lit up the Thaipusam eve skies. 40 cultural shows were held on the day itself. More than 550 stalls offering everything from prayer items to food to clothes added to the festivities enjoyed by Malaysians.

Annually, celebrations commence with a procession on the eve of Thaipusam from the Sri Maha Mariamman Temple in Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown district (Maha Mariamman is also another name for Parvathi, Murugan's mother). A five-ton silver chariot bearing Lord Murugan’s image followed by a procession of several thousand people in its wake makes a 13-km trek to Batu Caves. Upon the chariot’s arrival, devotees will carry Lord Murugan’s idol up the 272 steps to the temple cave, an ascent of about 56m or 185 feet from the base.

Throughout its history, the chariot has been pulled by up to six pairs of bulls. But in 2000, the organisers responded to allegations of animal abuse, by switching to a motorised vehicle. Meanwhile, drumbeats make trance-inducing rhythms and long wooden pipes, known as nathaswaram, croon devotional tunes in a loud festive atmosphere.

Thaipusam is of course celebrated all over Malaysia. In Penang, more than 600,000 people including foreign tourists made their way to the Arulmigu Balathandayuthabani temple in Jalan Kebun Bunga. The Thaipusam festival is also a mainstay in Penang's event calendar. The temple management and several factories and associations set-up 110 stalls along Jalan Utama to offer food and drinks. More than 1,000 kavadis of various sizes and colours were carried by devotees up the 248 steps to the top of the temple as an act of seeking blessings.

The festivities in Penang have evolved to the extent that they assimilate distinctly local characteristics. This year’s celebrations drew a cosmopolitan following of many non-Indians. One group of Chinese devotees was seen pulling a small chariot of Kuan Yin, the Chinese Goddess of Mercy. Another group had actually prepared an ornate chariot replete with giant images of Hindu gods such as Shiva and Kali accompanied by the serene image of Kuan Yin.

Penang’s yearly Thaipusam chariot procession has been held since 1857 (coincidentally the year Kuala Lumpur was founded under the auspices of Raja Abdullah in Selangor). A wooden chariot was used for the first 37 years until the silver chariot was brought from India to Penang in 1894.

Devotees who undertake a vow observe a strict vegetarian fast or viratham, consuming only water and pure Satvik food once a day for about 40 days. They observe celibacy and renounce all forms of comfort and pleasurable activities. The 40 days of purification are spent in meditation and prayer.

Among the vows taken are through carrying the kavadi or pal kodum (milk containers), breaking of coconuts or shaving one's head bald. They would then carry out their vows clad in yellow and saffron, clean-shaven heads smeared with sandalwood paste. Fire walking and self-flagellation may also be practiced.

The most spectacular practice is the vel kavadi, essentially a portable altar up to two meters tall, decorated with peacock plumes and attached to the devotee through 108 vels pierced into the skin on the chest and back. Many others pierce their tongue and cheek to impede speech and thereby attain full concentration on the Lord. Most devotees enter into a trance at such piercing due to the incessant drumming and chanting of "vel vel shakti vel.”

The kavadi itself is steeped in ancient mythology. At Mount Kailas, Lord Shiva entrusted the dwarf saint sage Agastya with two hillocks, with instructions to carry and install them in South India. But the sage left them in a forest and later asked his disciple, Idumban to get them. Idumban found the two hillocks, but could not initially lift them, until he obtained divine help. Near Palani in South India – where to this day there is a famous shrine of Murugan - Idumban put the hillocks down to rest awhile. When he attempted to continue his journey, he found that the hillocks were immovable.

Idumban sought the help of a scantily dressed youth, but the youth claimed the hillocks belonged to him. In the ensuing scuffle, Idumban was defeated. He then realised that the youth was Lord Murugan in disguise. Idumban pleaded to be pardoned and asked that anyone who comes to the hills to worship Murugan with an object similar to the two hillocks suspended by a rod, may be granted his wishes. And so the kavadi came to play its role in Hindu festivals such as Thaipusam in 1Malaysia.

My Star Trek Future Begins

I felt so sad after I saw the new Star Trek movie. Why? Because I wish I lived in the world of Star Trek!

No I'm not being escapist. The world I currently live in is certainly not bad: Kuala Lumpur with its futuristic skyscapes, Petronas Twin Towers and mega-malls has already been voted one of the most Sci-Fi like cities in Asia. What I miss is the adventure of a world where space and science are open frontiers that I can zoom across.

For example, I wanna meet aliens! Oh well there are many 'alien' close encounters of the illegal immigrant kind in Kuala Lumpur - but these nice fellow Indonesians or Bangladeshis are not alien enough.

I wanna meet Vulcans and Wookies and ET-cuties and speak their languages. Oh yeah, I speak Klingon well enough, and Serbian too which is as alien as it gets for Southeast Asians, ha ha. Incidentally I also speak Japanese, and Vulcan grammar is modelled on Japanese (yes I do know Vulcan). Ironically the Vulcan greeting "Dif-tor heh smusma" (Live long and prosper) sounds much better and rhymes nicer in Malay-Indonesian: "Panjang Umur dan Makmur". I'll use that from now on in my greetings after Assalamualaikum.

Anyway while I think Chris Pine is fine and cute as Kirk in this film, you just can't beat the original sexiness of a then-young William Shatner when he was James Tiberius Kirk. But if I were to get to choose to be a role in Star Trek, I would want to be... a new character called "the Nadge", a last member of the ancient Y(h)xeut true civilization who holds true wisdom through a billion years of gaining knowledge and experience. Hence my own original motto that first ever appeared in the world through Flixster.com: "Knowledge alone is not enough to bring wisdom; experience does that". The Nadge would get to make love with many different species due to the need to find a suitable partner that can help breed his last seed, ha ha! My only complaint about this new Star Trek is that Spock shouldn't be shown as so intimate with Uhura: because it makes him lose his Vulcan aura. (Hey, that rhymes!)

But seriously on that. In fact Uhura should first try being intimate with the Nadge (I have a soft spot for Black/African women - my only date at University was a beautiful Uhura type from Botswana). Yes Uhura should be with the Nadge. Oh wait, the Nadge character is not even in Star Trek yet...

Hey Hollywood Star Trek execs, I'm right here!

-nadge-