Fish or Luck? How homophones shape Chinese New Year practices
A new cycle of the 12 zodiac signs begins, and like many Chinese households in Singapore, my family and I are gearing up for this yearly occasion.
In the last four years abroad for my studies, I celebrated the new year over a video call with my family, often with a simple meal for friends that I made there. Since we all come from different backgrounds and cultures, it goes without saying that my friends would have questions for me regarding my cultural practices.
“Why tangerines during Chinese New Year and not apples? Aren’t they better since they’re red?”
“Is there a reason why you have to have fish?”
“What does lou hei even mean?”
How do you answer that? I had a vague understanding of why we do what we do, but I’ve never had to explain our cultural practices in detail before, and so, I never really questioned it.
So, why tangerines and not any other fruit?
The word for “tangerine” in Mandarin is júzi 橘子, which sounds close to jí 吉, the word for “luck” and “prosperity”. For that reason, tangerines have become a token of good luck, and a quintessential part of Chinese New Year.
Homophones and finding luck in food
Traditionally, people in Chinese society regard wealth and longevity as tokens of happiness and success in life. These tokens are also formed in the same way, and are known as lucky words, or jí lì huà 吉利话, through rhyming words or homophones, and are widely used during festive occasions.
Homophones are words that have the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spelling. You might recognise some in the English language: eight and ate, pear and pair, and cereal and serial.
Due to its limited number of tonal categories and non-inflectional nature in general, the Chinese language has naturally accumulated an abundant number of homophones. In fact, up to 47 characters may be found with the same pronunciation.
You might encounter the same in texting language, for example, when you type “4get” instead of “forget”. The use of homophones in the Chinese language is similar, except they are used in greetings or at certain parts of festive occasions to better the chances of being successful, wealthy and healthy.
In most cases for Chinese New Year, lucky words are often replaced with food.
For example, lettuce is served for the first meal of the New Year because the word for “lettuce”, shēng cài 生菜 is near homophonous to shēng cái 生财 “to make money”. Or fish is served as the last course of a meal because chī shèng yǒu yú 吃剩有鱼 “to have fish leftover after eating” is homophonic with chī shèng yǒu yú 吃剩有余 “to have surplus after eating”.
Another practice that is unique to Singapore and Malaysia is yú shēng 魚生. Also known as lou hei, which means “tossing up good fortune” in Cantonese, it is a ritual where people toss a colourful dish while saying auspicious phrases.
Reinvented and popularised in the ‘60s, the dish is made up of many different elements, all symbolising different auspicious wishes. For example, green-coloured ingredients are used because the character for green, qīng 青 is also seen in the phrase qīng chūn cháng zhù 青春常驻, meaning “eternal youth”.
Words and Taboos
On the flip side, words that are considered inauspicious or taboo along with their homophonic counterparts are avoided and not mentioned during the festive seasons.
The most common in most East Asian cultures is the number 4, as its pronunciation sì 四, is homophonic with sǐ 死 “death”. As a result, people tend to avoid saying or using the number 4 during festive occasions.
There is something beautiful about the way language and culture interconnect with one another.
Even after celebrating Chinese New Year for more than 20 years, each experience is always a little different from the previous, each time with a new twist while maintaining old traditions.
Language and culture will continue to influence each other as they evolve with time — there is still much to learn about our own cultures, and examining it through the use of homophones is just the tip of the iceberg.
Written by Chrystal Hooi
