Human Day 2008 - Wordless Wednesday

Happy Birthday to Every Human!

On the 7th day of our Lunar New Year, it is known as ren ri (人日), literally translated it means Humans' Day. According to our Chinese customs, it is the day when humans were created.

The story I heard from my grandmother was : On the first day, the Goddess nuwa (女媧) created chicken, second day was dog, third day was pig, fourth day was sheep, fifth day was cow, sixth day was horse, seventh day was human, eighth day was cereal, ninth day was sky and the tenth day earth. Since the first few days are birthdays of animals, we avoid killing them on their respective birthdays and we have a vegetarian dish on the 7th day.


For my family who are Teochews, we will have a traditional 7-vegetable dish (七样羹) on that day. We buy 7 types of vegetables and cook them together. These vegetables combined together makes an auspicious dish. Different dialect groups would cook different types of vegetables.

Many Singaporean Chinese families don't observe the traditional custom of this day now. For those who do, they would use the colourful yu-sheng dish (raw fish) to replace the 7-vegetable dish.

Singaporean Chinese use 7-colour sliced fish (七彩魚生) instead of 7-vegetable dish.

潮州七样羹是︰大（芥）菜、高合、芹菜、蒜、春菜、韭菜、芥兰 .... 等蔬菜同煮，寄寓“新（芹）春发（蒜）大财（大菜），久（韭）合各人（芥兰）”的吉祥彩语。

客家人用芹菜、蒜、葱、芫茜、韭菜加鱼、肉等；

台湾、福建用菠菜、芹菜、葱蒜、韭菜、芥菜、荠菜、白菜等。其中芹菜和 葱兆聪明，蒜兆精于算计，芥菜令人长寿，如此种种。


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Wordless Wednesday