Tuesday, January 24, 2012

They Shoot Lo_Yusheng with P&S Don't They?

A reunion dinner is held on New Year's Eve of the Chinese New Year, during which family members get together to celebrate.

This CNY eve, thanks to Michael and Debbie Moon we (Le General and Ming) were invited to their family reunion dinner :)

I brought along two sets of Yusheng and we also bought two thick slices of fresh salmon to add more oomph to the mix ;)

Since most of the Moon clan has not experience "Lo Yusheng" before, I thought it will be a refreshing experience for them.

Yusheng come in different styles, this one was from Janet in Auckland.


According to Wikipedia...

While versions of it is thought to have existed in China, the contemporary version of Yusheng is created and popularised in Singapore in the 1960s amongst the ethnic Chinese community and its consumption has been associated with Chinese New Year festivities in Singapore as well as in neighbouring Malaysia.

In Singapore, government, community and business leaders often take the lead in serving the dish as part of official functions during the festive period or in private celebrity dinners. Some have even suggested that it be named a national dish.

Le General getting the Yusheng ready while Debbie look on.
Ming getting the Yusheng ready for the other table.
The fun part of Yusheng is the "Lo Hei"...

Yusheng, yee sang or yuu sahng (Chinese: 鱼生; pinyin: yúshēng; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: hî-seⁿ or hû-siⁿ), or Prosperity Toss, also known as lo hei (Cantonese for 撈起 or 捞起) is a Teochew-style raw fish salad.

It usually consists of strips of raw fish (most commonly salmon), mixed with shredded vegetables and a variety of sauces and condiments, among other ingredients.

Yusheng literally means "raw fish" but since "fish (鱼)" is commonly conflated with its homophone "abundance (余)", Yúshēng (鱼生) is interpreted as a homophone for Yúshēng (余升) meaning an increase in abundance. Therefore, yusheng is considered a symbol of abundance, prosperity and vigor.

Our Generation  Z got into the traditional "lo hei" with vigor :)
Baby boomers were having fun at "lo hei" too :)
After posting above pictures in Facebook, a friend asked me what camera I used to shoot them; when I told him it was my Canon G12 P&S, he thought I was pulling his leg because he pointed...

1. The G12's only zoom to 28mm wide and these shots look like being taken by much wider lens.

2. The G12's miserable built-in flash cannot provide what look like bounced flash in the pictures.

Ha ha ha... you cannot fool him, he is good!

Those pictures were taken with my G12, BUT with some "extras"...

G12 with extras ;)
My G12 I used was fitted with the Nikon WC-E75 wide converter lens, this solid hunk of glass turn the 28mm to 18mm ultra wide!  You can read about it here.

For soft shadow free light, I attached the small but powerful Sunpak RD2000 external flash to the G12's hot-shoe.

So who need a heavy DSLR?

Footnote:

I got my yummy yusheng at R&S Satay Noodles House in Cuba Street you can call Sarah at 04-385-1496 to order yours. One day notice is needed for preparation.

You can have your "Lo Hei" at R&S or take-away.

1 comment:

heather said...

Wow!Looks yummy! Nice and fresh looking. I will have to go back and see if I can guess what the ingredients are.