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At Chinese New Year a reunion dinner is held on New Year's Eve where family members get together to celebrate. The New Year's Eve dinner is very large and traditionally includes chicken and pork. Fish (魚, yú) is also included, but intentionally not eaten up completely (and the remaining fish is stored overnight). The reason for this lies stems from a pun, as the Chinese phrase 年年有魚/餘; (nián nián yǒu yú, or "every year there is fish/leftover") is a homophone for phrases which could mean "be blessed every year" or "have profit every year", since "yú" is also the pronunciation for "surplus". Similarly, a type of black hair-like algae, "fat choy"(髮菜, fǎ cài, literally "hair vegetable"), which is in Cantonese, is also featured in many dishes since its name sounds similar to "prosperity"(發財, fā cái). Hakka will serve "kiu nyuk" 扣肉 and "ngiong tiu fu" 釀豆腐.
Like the child's aphorism "step on a crack, break your mother's back", because the phrases sound alike, the belief is that having one will lead to the other.
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