捞鱼生

The practice of 捞鱼生 was originated from Singapore many decades back. It was a common practice amongst the (rich) businessman to 捞鱼生 on the seventh day of the lunar new year, 人日. For this year’s calendar, the special day fell on 04/02/06 (Saturday). Ha.. yeah so.. you may have received some “Happy Birthday” wishes yesterday. :)

Mm..
Actually I don’t like to eat 鱼生, and I don’t like to 捞鱼生 at all. I think the symbolic tossing of food (mostly shredded vegetable) is messy. Sure, many Chinese practices are just symbolic. Imagine, when they are tossing the food, they go “越捞越起，捞到风生水起”, “ 捞啊！发啊！” or any other auspicious words of well-wishing. These well-wishings are all in line of the innermost desire for better wealth, better health for the new year. The thought of wishing each other is nice, but.. heh.. just glad they also eat the great mess of food they have created, and not toss it away.

Even though there is a strong believe that there shouldn’t be any killing on the special day, then why the raw fish is in the 鱼生? I don’t think they explain this well. Maybe 鱼 and 余 sounds exactly the same. 鱼 being fish and 余 suggests abundance. 生 being raw, but it can also mean emerging, growing as in 风生水起. So, the auspicious significance can overrule the strong believe. Mm..

The author also participated in 捞鱼生, when invited to join in. One condition : please remove the raw fish. I don’t believe in the practice, but I’m not anti-social mah. The practice itself is pretty harmless. At the end of it, these people seem to be happy or at least they seem to possess an element of hope, after the many well-wishing tossed at each other.

Have you ever wonder? Fish lives in the water. The water body is the world of the fishes. Let us say fishes are in control of the water bodies. Yeah so.. when we are traveling by sea, playing by the sea, are we not worry about the more literal sense of 风生水起 (the "uproars" of the wind... the "uproars" of the water)?

Many people who don’t practice 捞鱼生 are doing very much better than those who are ever so insistence on the practice every year. Perhaps, the key to better health, better happiness and better wealth lies elsewhere.

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有一位学者这么说：
劳谦学习是功德；用心生活是修行。