One of the joys of being part of the international school community is taking part in new traditions. Alongside the lion and dragon dances, there is Yusheng or prosperity toss.

You can buy ready made packs of ingredients at the local supermarket. The most important ingredient is the raw fish which symoolizes prosperity for the year ahead.  There’s also a variety of vegetables, crackers and condiments which each have a special significance and is supposed to be done in order. In the kid’s excitement everything thing pretty much gets dumped in as the best is yet to come.

Next step is to grab the chopsticks and start tossing the salad. The higher the toss, the better luck you’ll have for the year ahead. There’s a reason I put the newspaper down first!

While we didn’t manage to get any on the ceiling, some kids went home with salad in their head.