Chinese New Year - A Night to Remember
A Recap of HTG’s Chinese New Year Celebration - The Year of the Dragon
Chinese New Year is the most important festival in the Chinese lunar calendar. Chinese New Year began this year on February 10th and to celebrate we hosted a Chinese New Year celebration of almost 90 guests at the Canton Hong Kong Restaurant in Hamilton on the 16th.
The night was magical, beginning with the ‘Yee Sang Ceremony’ prosperity tradition (Pictured below). Yee Sang stands for raw fish and the piece de resistance is the prosperity salad consisting of fresh raw salmon with a salad of many fresh plant ingredients and a dressing. In a culture steeped in tradition and good luck omens, raw fish was chosen because the word ‘raw’ is a homonym for ‘alive’. Therefore, the ceremony symbolises the rejuvenation of whatever the participants wish to revivify.
The ceremony involved the placement of the ingredients on a plate and then performing the ‘loh sang’ which is where everyone chipped in to stir the ingredients. The more vigorously you stir the more prosperous your year will be. This was a new experience for many. You all embraced the tradition beautifully as you tossed the ingredients of the Yee Sang, with many tossing theirs to the ceiling and hopefully guaranteeing themselves prosperity in the new year.
Along with this, we were served a delicious spread of dishes as usual with the Peking duck as the highlight along with a dessert of golden sesame balls. Thank you to Canton Hong Kong for your incredible hospitality and delicious meals as always.
Listen to Alan Chew’s interview on THE BREEZE about Chinese New Year and the celebration hosted by Houston below.
Read Waikato Business News’ article entitled Aimlessly Tossing and Turning about the Chinese New Year celebration. Click the button below to read the article:
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We send our utmost gratitude to all those who attended, your enthusiastic presence made the evening all the more special. We have a vast variety of cultures within Houston Technology Group and are committed to creating an environment that embraces diversity from all backgrounds. For those who haven’t attended a Chinese New Year Celebration or a Yee Sang before we hope you learnt something new and have broadened your knowledge and experiences with a new different cultural tradition.
Embracing cultural diversity is essential for creating an inclusive community within the industry. On top of this, we also hope you had an incredible time and enjoyed partaking in the festivities with us. This was also an opportunity to catch up with you all and celebrate the year to come for us in 2024. We wish a prosperous new year for you and hope you had an amazing night with us. We hope to see you at more events and we can’t wait for future collaboration with you. For more photos from the night see below.
Gong xi fa cai!
