A raw fish salad with shredded vegetables and condiments, tossed at the table by everyone together with chopsticks raised as high as possible. The higher the toss, the greater the incoming luck. Accompanied by shouting auspicious phrases. A beloved ritual unique to Singapore and Malaysia.

Families host open houses throughout the first two weeks of the New Year, welcoming colleagues, friends, and neighbors of all backgrounds. Pineapple tarts, bak kwa, love letters, and mandarin oranges are on every table.

Singapore's spectacular Chingay Parade — a dazzling street procession of floats, stilts, lion dances, and performances from all ethnic communities — is one of Asia's grandest New Year parades, held annually on the 22nd day of the first lunar month.

Both Kuala Lumpur's Petaling Street and Singapore's Chinatown are transformed by elaborate lantern installations, neon archways, and festive markets from January through February. The illuminations are a major tourist draw.

Traditional Chinese street opera (wayang) performances are a hallmark of Lunar New Year in older Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese communities, particularly the Hokkien and Teochew communities who maintain this theatrical tradition.

The first two weeks involve intensive rounds of social visits — relatives, friends, colleagues, and neighbors. Mandarin oranges are exchanged in pairs; pineapple tarts and bak kwa are served; tea is poured.

Raw fish (typically salmon) with shredded radish, carrot, cucumber, ginger, and a rainbow of condiments, tossed together at the table. Each ingredient symbolizes something: red radish for luck, green radish for eternal youth, crackers for gold bricks.

Sweet, sticky, flame-grilled sliced pork (bak kwa) is the defining Malaysian and Singaporean New Year snack. Queues outside bak kwa shops in the final days before New Year stretch around the block. Gifted in decorative tins.

Buttery pastry shells filled with pineapple jam — essential on every open-house table. 'Pineapple' in Hokkien (ong lai) sounds like 'luck arriving,' making these pastries the edible embodiment of a wish for fortune.

Thin, crispy wafer rolls made from coconut milk batter cooked on hinged iron molds over fire. Their rolled shape resembles scrolled love letters. Labor-intensive and delicious — a homemade love letter is a treasured gift.

A lavish Cantonese dish of premium ingredients — abalone, sea cucumber, fish maw, prawns, mushrooms, and more — layered in a large pot and braised together. Served at family dinners and corporate New Year banquets as a symbol of gathering abundance.

Exchanged in pairs at every visit — 'ong' in Cantonese/Hokkien sounds like 'gold.' Singaporeans typically give mandarin oranges with both hands, bowing slightly, and receive a different pair back.