A Singaporean academic has recently claimed on Facebook that the lo sang (tossing of yee sang) culture was originated from the island republic and should be entered into Unesco's Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Following food ownership debates over Hainanese chicken rice, bak kut teh and chilli crab, it reignited a food fight between Singaporeans and Malaysians.
It is a bit embarrassing, as we always find after massive debates that many dishes actually originated neither from Singapore nor Malaysia, but China, India or Indonesia.
As for the lo sang culture being practiced during the Chinese New Year, a more credible argument is, it originated from the Guangdong Province and was brought into Malaysia and Singapore in the 1940s. Local flavour was added and the dish then evolved into the modern version of yee sang, a Chinese New Year must-have dish. And the practice of lo sang became a popular local Chinese culture.
Yours or mine?
