Talk:Yusheng

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Is this really a salad? I think otherwise. -- Jerry Crimson Mann 17:14, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Heh...then what will be a better word for it? Actually it does sound rather strange being called a "salad" since it conjures up images of those western salads which are completely different...--Huaiwei 19:37, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree...in fact I don't like the name "Chinese salad"...a really very stupid name...=.= -- Jerry Crimson Mann 19:39, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
I am a native english speaker and have also eaten this, and it seems quite natural to me to call it a salad. I guess the main reasons are that it consists of a number of ingredients tossed together with a dressing. Also note that there are some quite unusual salads anyway --- consider egg salad for example. --Mathish 04:51, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Apparently, the term raw fish salad is quite commonly used. See [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. --Nathaniel 16:53, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Invented 1500 yrs ago? I think this dish is invented in the 1960s in Singapore. Even the website that is linked to it suggests that it is a singapore invention. --Run Xuan 01:56, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

The association of eating yusheng as a Chinese New Year celebration is probably a Singaporean/Malaysian tradition. But the food itself comes from Guangdong and surrounding regions.

I'm no expert but I have never seen Chinese cuisine being known for raw fish. I had been based in HK for 12+ years and have travelled through and lived in different parts of China. It's only in Japanese or Korean restaurants in China or Hong Kong that I've seen raw fish. In Chao Zhou (Chiu Chou) cuisine, there is a raw crab dish that is really pickled raw crab. I am now living in Singapore for the past year and have only noticed here the phenomenon of raw fish being part of a ethnic Chinese dish. From anecdotal accounts from friends here, it does seem to be a recent invention perhaps within the last 30 years and certainly not from 1500 years ago. I suspect Yu Sheng's and Lo Hei's origins are from a marketing gimmick from some of the restaurants mixing the then new practice of eating raw fish as increasingly affluent Singaporeans discovered Japanese food in the 70's and 80's. So I highly doubt the accuracy of this article. What would have greater credibility is if Chinese cuisine historians/anthropologist/chefs also provide support evidence for this. DannyCK (talk) 16:23, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


I have found several articles that introduces new information about the origins of yusheng, corroborating a paragraph deleted on 2007-02-27 11:21 that it was invented in Singapore. It seems that yusheng is an elaborate version of an earlier, simpler dish believed to have originated in Guangzhou province. This may explain the confusing and conflicting claims of invention in ancient China.

The articles I have found provide convincing evidence to specific persons and dates of invention and so I am removing the claim to origination in Malaysia in the 1950s. A possible source of confusion is that the dish was first served for Chinese New Year of 1963, which is before the formation of the modern Malaysian Federation. Therefore technically the place of invention was Malaya which predates both Malaysia and Singapore. This may explain the conflicting claim of invention in Malaysia.

AcidFlask (talk) 19:59, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

No, yusheng was definitely invented in China, and I have on my desk a 1988 publication on Cantonese cuisine written by the late Chan Mun-yan (1913-1997) who had done first-hand experiences with Cantonese cuisine in China before the PRC was founded. In the pre-1949 China, yusheng involved stirring sliced grass slices with the accompaniments including carrots, etc, and the spices must include chili and cinnamon - basically the dish was already identical to today's yusheng served in SE Asia. This practice was outlawed post 1949 in the mainland because it was deemed full of parasite landmines. The practice, however, survived in the US's Chinatowns particularly in San Francisco, New York and Boston with the older generation Cantonese Chinese migrants, and yusheng is (in 1988) served on the 7th Day of the first month of the Chinese New Year. Another book written by an academic based at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou collobrated largely the same information. --JNZ (talk) 03:30, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] This article in Chinese

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%94%9F%E9%AD%9A%E7%89%87

According to that, raw fish was consumed in China before the Qin Dynasty (with several sources at the end). On the other hand, it's not ncessarily the same as yusheng, it's just the tradition of consuming fish raw is an ancient tradition in China. 130.126.75.181 (talk) 00:45, 13 March 2008 (UTC)cecikierk

[edit] Yusheng is from pre-1949 China

Older cookbooks and newspaper feature articles in Hong Kong (from 1960s to 1980s) all stated yusheng as a dressed and mixed dish on the table was already served in Guangdong China before 1949, and in fact eating fish raw is an ancient Cantonese custom. The dish is identical to how it is served in Singapore and Malaysia today, except grass carp was used and cinnamon must be added into the spice (it will kill off the parasite). After 1949 the dish disappeared in the mainland due to Communist government campaigns on hygiene, and Hong Kong out of hygiene concerns due to rising affulence. But it survives in pockets of overseas Chinese communities - apart from Malaysia and Singapore, you can enjoy yusheng if you go to the US's older Chinatowns on the 7th day of the first month of the Chinese New Year. I have with me two books in Chinese (one published in 1988, the other in 1990), one by a veteran Chinese-American journalist/foodie that lived through the 1920s to 1940s in China, the otehr by a middle-aged Guangzhou-based academic, and both stated yusheng as prepared similar to today's dish, served in pre-1949 Guangdong province. --JNZ (talk) 03:38, 20 April 2008 (UTC)