Reunion Dinner – 年夜飯 (團年飯)

Image · Posted by Sam Han on February 10, 2013 · 2 Comments

The New Year’s Eve Dinner is very large and traditionally includes chicken and pork. Fish (魚, yú) is also included, but intentionally not finished, and the remaining fish is stored overnight. The reason for this stems from a pun, as the Chinese phrase 年年有魚/餘; (nián nián yǒu yú, or “every year there is fish/leftover”) is a homophone for phrases which mean “be blessed every year” or “have profit every year”.

I just got back from my sister’s house where the reunion dinner was graciously held for the past few years. Dad and Rich chipped in to cook. Yup, the men in our household love to cook while the ladies love to eat 🙂

I used to love watching Dad cook when young and he still serves a mean meal 🙂

Ngoh Hiang (五香) – meat rolls spiced with 5-spice powder wrapped in beancurd skin.

Dad juggling between the woks… deep-frying our home-style southern fried chicken and fish curry.

Chicken and Ngoh Hiang are ready – this is where the second chef takes over…

Uncle Rich, my bro-in-law, frying the prawn balls, vegetable balls and calamari rings.

Roast Duck to add some “red” on the table.

Our reunion dinner is officially served!

Steamboat is another popular reunion meal as everyone needs to crowd around and D.I.Y. the cooking so you can imagine the noise level at the round table… it’s like an aviary 🙂

Some of the food that goes into the steamboat – plenty of meat and seafood plus round things, lol… Round is an auspicious symbol in Chinese – “good things are never ending”.

My family members.

More mingling and bonding after the dinner – board games and karaoke session 🙂

This year we celebrated reunion without Vanessa as she is still in Melbourne.

Bam (our dog) and Choby (my sister’s family dog) had fun too – chasing each other’s tails.

My elder daughter Valerie with Choby.

Dad, Mom, Sis, Bro and I.

The Mandarin Oranges and Hong Baos (Red Packets with some money inside) will be in our handbags when we visit our relatives in order of their seniority and status in the family.

Hong Baos (紅包 or 利是) are given to unmarried adults and young children as a token of well wishes. We also give hongbao to our elders to wish them good health and longevity.

We normally do a vegetable hamper to keep during the 15 days of celebration. The vegetables do not keep and will ferment – the reason for doing this stems from a pun Fa Cai 发财 (the Chinese word fa 发 sounds the same for ferment as well as prosper and cai 菜 vegetables sounds the same as cai 财 meaning wealth and fortune). The homophone for Gong Xi Fa Cai!

There are some rules that I still follow… leaving the lights (4 corners of our house) on till the daylight breaks so that the God of Fortune can see our house and come bless us with abundance. Also, no using of brooms or anything sharp like nail clippers and knives, until the first day is over. Lol… Nothing bad will happen if you don’t follow any of these rules. It’s just a tradition to instill some inconvenience and therefore “more significance” to the day. My children are western educated and they love to play this “game” along with me. Valerie said to me after the reunion dinner, on her way to meet some friends for drinks, “Remember to slice the nian gao before midnight!”