When you lo hei, you add each yu sheng ingredient one at a time and say a four-character auspicious phrase for it, then everyone tosses the salad as high as they can. This guide lists the lo hei yu sheng phrases in their standard Singapore order, opening with gong xi fa cai and closing on a loud toss, with the full set of Chinese characters and meanings in the table below. It also adds the money side that the phrase guides skip: a yu sheng platter for CNY 2026 runs from about S$39.80 for a supermarket pack that feeds six to eight, up to S$98 to S$313++ for restaurant and hotel versions, and the cheap one tosses just as high. Say the right thing, and don't overpay for the privilege.
Lo hei (撈起, Cantonese for scoop it up) is the ritual of tossing yu sheng, the raw-fish salad eaten during Chinese New Year. The dish is a string of homophones: yu (鱼, fish) sounds like yu (余, surplus or abundance), and sheng (生) means both raw and life, so yu sheng reads as an abundance of wealth and long life. Each ingredient you add carries a four-character blessing, and the louder and higher the table tosses, the better the year is supposed to go.
You do not have to memorise all of these. In practice one person calls each phrase as the ingredients go in, and everyone else echoes the last two characters or just shouts along. The table below is the standard Singapore sequence. The order is broadly fixed because it mirrors how the ingredients are layered, but a few households swap a couple of steps around, which is fine.
CNY 2026 falls on Tuesday 17 and Wednesday 18 February, the start of the Year of the Horse, and both days are gazetted public holidays under MOM. Most reunion lo hei sessions happen on the eve, the first day, or across the 15 days of visiting, so you have plenty of chances to use the list. The full set of 2026 public holidays tells you which other days fall conveniently for gathering.
| Step / ingredient | Chinese phrase | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Greeting (before tossing) | 恭喜发财 | gōng xǐ fā cái | May you have a prosperous year |
| Raw fish (salmon) | 年年有余 | nián nián yǒu yú | Abundance year after year |
| Pomelo or lime | 大吉大利 | dà jí dà lì | Good luck and smooth sailing |
| Pepper and five-spice powder | 招财进宝 | zhāo cái jìn bǎo | Attract wealth and treasures |
| Oil, drizzled in a circle | 一本万利 | yì běn wàn lì | Small effort, huge returns |
| Shredded carrot | 鸿运当头 | hóng yùn dāng tóu | Good luck is coming your way |
| Shredded green radish | 青春常驻 | qīng chūn cháng zhù | Forever young |
| Shredded white radish | 风生水起 | fēng shēng shuǐ qǐ | Progress and prosper quickly |
| Crushed peanuts | 金银满屋 | jīn yín mǎn wū | A house full of gold and silver |
| Sesame seeds | 生意兴隆 | shēng yì xīng lóng | Booming business |
| Golden crackers | 遍地黄金 | biàn dì huáng jīn | Gold all over the floor |
| Plum sauce, drizzled over | 甜甜蜜蜜 | tián tián mì mì | A sweet and loving year |
| Final toss (everyone) | 捞起捞起，越捞越旺 | lāo qǐ lāo qǐ, yuè lāo yuè wàng | Toss it up, the more you toss the more you prosper |
If you are the one arrowed to lead and you blank under pressure, you only really need a handful. Open with gong xi fa cai (恭喜发财) as the platter lands. Say nian nian you yu (年年有余) for the fish, the most recognised one. Hit feng sheng shui qi (风生水起) for the radish because it pairs with the tossing motion. Then close the toss with lo hei or huat ah while everyone lifts the chopsticks high.
The point of lo hei is the noise and the togetherness, not a perfect recitation. Enthusiasm carries it. A common move is to add a personal one as you toss, such as bu bu gao sheng (步步高升, rising step by step) for someone starting a new job, or shen ti jian kang (身体健康, good health) for the elders at the table.
If you want a few extra phrases for specific wishes, students often shout xue ye jin bu (学业进步, progress in studies), couples say xin xiang shi cheng (心想事成, may your wishes come true), and anyone hoping for a windfall throws in da zhan hong tu (大展宏图, may your ambitions soar). None of these are tied to a specific ingredient, so you can drop them in anytime during the toss. For more general greetings to use across the visiting period, see our list of Chinese New Year phrases.
Several ingredients have more than one accepted phrase, so don't panic if you have heard a different one. The oil step is sometimes called as cai yuan guang jin (财源广进, wealth flowing in from all sides) instead of yi ben wan li. The five-spice and pepper step can be wu fu lin men (五福临门, may the five blessings reach your home). The white radish can take bu bu gao sheng (步步高升, rising step by step) in place of feng sheng shui qi. They all work; pick whichever the loudest person at the table already knows.
Place the platter in the middle so everyone can reach. The person leading adds ingredients one by one and says the matching phrase; the table repeats it. Keep the fish, sauces and crackers for last because the crackers go soggy fast once the plum sauce hits.
When everything is in, everyone picks up their chopsticks and tosses the salad upward together while calling out blessings. As the leader calls each phrase, a common table response is shou dao (收到, received), the same way you would acknowledge a message. Convention says the higher you toss, the better your prospects for the year, which is why tables end up flinging shreds of carrot across the tablecloth. There is no rule on how many tosses; people usually go for seven or eight rounds of lifting, or just keep going until someone calls time.
The modern seven-coloured yu sheng most Singaporeans toss was created in 1964 by four chefs later known as the Four Heavenly Kings, who added peanuts and crackers for colour and crunch. The full origin story is in the section below, and the short version is that the dish on your table is a genuinely Singaporean reinvention, roughly 62 years old in 2026.
Here is the part the phrase guides skip. A yu sheng platter for CNY 2026 spans a wide price range, and the toss is identical whether you spent S$40 or S$300. There are roughly four tiers. A supermarket pack from NTUC FairPrice or similar is the cheapest at around S$39.80 for a tray that feeds six to eight. A casual chain or sushi spot sits at about S$42 to S$64. A mid-range restaurant or hotel salmon yu sheng runs S$58 to S$168++. Premium hotel platters with abalone, hamachi and gold leaf reach S$98 to S$313++ and beyond.
The figure that catches people out is the ++. Restaurants and hotels quote yu sheng with two plus signs, written as S$98++. The first plus is the 10 percent service charge, the second is the 9 percent GST, which has been the rate since 1 January 2024 per IRAS. Service charge is added first, then GST applies on top, so the real uplift is 19.9 percent, not 19. A S$98++ platter is about S$117 nett. Multiply any ++ price by 1.199 to get the true cost before you compare anything. Supermarket and many takeaway prices are quoted nett, so a S$39.80 pack is S$39.80 at the till.
Per head, the gap is stark. A S$39.80 supermarket pack for eight is about S$5 a person. A S$117 nett restaurant platter for six is roughly S$20 a head. A S$313++ hotel platter, about S$375 nett, for ten works out to S$37.50 each for one course. If yu sheng is one dish in a larger reunion meal, the supermarket or takeaway pack frees up budget for the rest of the spread. Treat it as a planned festive line in your monthly budget rather than an impulse add-on at the till.
| Tier | Typical price | Serves | Rough cost per head |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supermarket pack (FairPrice) | ~S$39.80 nett | 6-8 | ~S$5-7 |
| Casual chain / sushi (Sushi Express, Soup Restaurant) | ~S$42-64 | 2-10 | ~S$6-15 |
| Mid-range restaurant / hotel salmon | ~S$58-168++ | 4-10 | ~S$10-25 |
| Premium hotel (abalone, hamachi, gold leaf) | ~S$98-313++ and up | 4-10 | ~S$25-40+ |
If you want the freshest version for the least money, assemble it yourself. The vegetable base is cheap: shredded white radish, carrot and green radish, plus pickled ginger and the dressing, total maybe S$8 to S$12 from a wet market or supermarket. The cracker-and-condiment packs that include peanuts, sesame, five-spice, golden crisps and plum sauce sell for around S$5 to S$10. The cost driver is the protein on top.
A 200g to 300g pack of salmon sashimi from a supermarket runs about S$15 to S$30 depending on grade. So a fully home-built salmon yu sheng for a family of six to eight lands around S$30 to S$50 all-in, which beats the supermarket pre-pack on freshness and matches it on price. If you want the abalone flourish, a can of braised abalone adds S$15 to S$40, still well under a hotel platter. The trade-off is the prep: shredding vegetables thinly by hand takes time, though many supermarkets sell the pre-shredded vegetable base in a bag during CNY.
Where DIY stops making sense is the very large gathering or the corporate lo hei where presentation matters. A 30-to-50-inch catered platter for 25 to 50 people runs S$488 to S$988 and arrives looking the part, which is hard to replicate at home. For a normal family table of six to ten, building your own or buying a S$40 supermarket pack is the value play, and the toss and the phrases are exactly the same.
The premium you pay at a hotel buys the protein, the plating and the room, not a better toss. If the occasion is a client dinner or a milestone reunion where the platter is part of the show, the S$150 to S$313++ versions earn their keep. For a regular family lo hei, the value sits firmly at the supermarket-pack or DIY end, because the ritual, the phrases and the luck are identical.
A few concrete ways to save. Pre-order early: most hotels and chains open yu sheng pre-orders from early to mid-January with early-bird discounts of 10 to 20 percent that vanish closer to CNY. Check whether your dinner set already includes a yu sheng before buying a separate one, since many reunion menus bundle it. Use a CDC voucher at participating supermarkets and heartland shops, which can offset a supermarket pack entirely. And size it correctly: a S$313++ platter that feeds ten is wasteful for a table of four, where a S$58 pack does the job.
If you host lo hei more than once across the 15 days, the cheaper tiers compound. Four supermarket packs across the visiting period cost about S$160 total; four premium hotel platters would be over S$1,200 nett. That is the difference between a treat and a spending habit that quietly inflates every festive season. Decide which one session is the splurge, and keep the rest economical.
If you want to understand the phrases rather than just recite them, each ingredient maps to its blessing through colour or sound. The raw fish is the anchor: yu (fish) is the homophone for abundance, hence year after year of surplus. The shredded carrots are orange and bright, standing for incoming good luck. White radish symbolises a smooth, fast rise in fortune. Green radish, evergreen, points to staying youthful.
The dressing and toppings layer on the wealth imagery. Golden crackers and peanuts are gold and silver filling the home. Sesame seeds scattered across the dish wish for a thriving business. The drizzle of oil in a circle means smooth flow of money from all directions, and the sweet plum sauce wishes for sweet relationships through the year. Pomelo or lime, large and round, brings luck and good fortune.
None of this requires belief to enjoy. The symbolism is the point of the game, and knowing it makes calling the phrases feel less like reading a cheat sheet and more like leading a small ceremony your table actually understands.
Raw fish has a long run in Chinese food. The National Heritage Board traces it back as far as the Zhou dynasty, and by the late Qing it had narrowed to southern China, mainly Guangdong and the Chaoshan region. Migrants carried the habit south, which is how a raw-fish dish ended up rooted in Singapore and Malaysia rather than most of China. The custom was originally tied to Renri (人日), the seventh day of the first lunar month, treated as everybody's shared birthday. Today nobody waits that long and yu sheng gets tossed across the whole festive period.
The colourful version on your table is much younger and local. National Heritage Board records put its debut on the second day of Chinese New Year in 1964, the work of four then-apprentice chefs later nicknamed the Four Heavenly Kings: Sin Leong, Hooi Kok Wai, Tham Yui Kai and Lau Yoke Pui. They reworked a plainer raw-fish salad into the seven-coloured plate Singaporeans now recognise, adding shredded radish, pomelo, peanuts and the crisp flour crackers for colour and crunch. Two of them, Tham Yui Kai and Lau Yoke Pui, co-founded Lai Wah Restaurant in 1963, which became closely linked to the dish.
There is a competing claim. National Heritage Board also notes a Seremban version, the Sup Kum Yee Sang, attributed to immigrant Loke Ching Fatt in the 1940s, so Malaysia and Singapore both stake ownership of the modern dish. None of that changes how you eat it. The point of knowing the history is that the loud, messy toss you do for CNY 2026 is a roughly 62-year-old Singaporean tradition, not an ancient imperial rite, and that takes the pressure off getting every phrase letter-perfect.
You add each ingredient one at a time and say a four-character phrase for it: gong xi fa cai as a greeting, nian nian you yu for the fish, da ji da li for pomelo or lime, hong yun dang tou for carrot, feng sheng shui qi for white radish, jin yin man wu for peanuts, man di huang jin for crackers, and tian tian mi mi for plum sauce. Then everyone tosses the salad high while shouting lo hei or huat ah. The full ordered list is in the table above.
The standard Singapore sequence is greeting (gong xi fa cai), raw fish (nian nian you yu), pomelo or lime (da ji da li), pepper and five-spice (zhao cai jin bao), oil (yi ben wan li), carrot (hong yun dang tou), green radish (qing chun chang zhu), white radish (feng sheng shui qi), peanuts (jin yin man wu), sesame seeds (sheng yi xing long), crackers (man di huang jin), plum sauce (tian tian mi mi), then the final toss. The order follows how the ingredients are layered, though some households swap a couple of steps.
Roughly S$40 to S$313++ and up, depending on tier. A supermarket pack from FairPrice is about S$39.80 nett for six to eight. Casual chains and sushi spots run S$42 to S$64. Mid-range restaurant or hotel salmon platters are S$58 to S$168++. Premium hotel versions with abalone reach S$98 to S$313++. Remember to multiply any ++ price by 1.199 to get the real cost after 10 percent service charge and 9 percent GST.
The first plus is the 10 percent service charge, the second is the 9 percent GST, the rate set by IRAS since 1 January 2024. Service charge is added first, then GST applies on the total, so the real uplift is 19.9 percent. A S$98++ yu sheng is about S$117 nett. Supermarket packs and many takeaways are quoted nett, meaning the price you see is the price you pay.
Lo hei (撈起) is Cantonese for scoop it up, the act of tossing yu sheng. The dish is built on homophones: yu (fish) sounds like the word for abundance, and sheng means both raw and life, so yu sheng reads as an abundance of wealth and long life. Tossing the salad high is believed to lift your fortune for the year. The modern seven-coloured version was created in 1964 by four chefs at Lai Wah Restaurant in Singapore.
Often yes, and it is fresher. A home-built salmon yu sheng for six to eight costs about S$30 to S$50: roughly S$8 to S$12 for the shredded vegetable base, S$5 to S$10 for a cracker and condiment pack, and S$15 to S$30 for salmon sashimi. That matches or beats the S$39.80 supermarket pre-pack on price. For very large or corporate tosses where plating matters, a catered platter still makes sense.
Chinese New Year 2026 falls on Tuesday 17 February and Wednesday 18 February, the start of the Year of the Horse. Both days are gazetted public holidays under the Ministry of Manpower. Lo hei sessions usually happen on the eve, the first two days, or across the 15 days of visiting, so you have several occasions to toss.
The modern seven-coloured yu sheng was created in 1964 by four then-apprentice chefs later known as the Four Heavenly Kings: Sin Leong, Hooi Kok Wai, Tham Yui Kai and Lau Yoke Pui. The National Heritage Board dates the debut to the second day of Chinese New Year in 1964. Two of the four co-founded Lai Wah Restaurant in 1963, which became tied to the dish. A separate claim credits a 1940s Seremban version in Malaysia, so both countries stake ownership.
Traditionally yu sheng was eaten on Renri (人日), the seventh day of the first lunar month, treated as everybody's shared birthday. Singaporeans no longer wait that long. In practice people toss it on the reunion eve, the first two days, or any time across the 15 days of visiting, so you can fit a session whenever the family gathers.
The toss is the lucky part of the ritual. Convention holds that the higher and louder you lift the salad, the better your fortune for the coming year, which is why it gets messy. There is no fixed number of tosses; most tables do seven or eight rounds while shouting blessings, then stop when someone calls time. The height is symbolic, so a S$39.80 supermarket pack tosses for exactly the same luck as a S$313++ hotel platter.
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