BUTTERWORTH: Over 1,000 devotees gathered at the Tow Boo Keong Temple here to toss yee sang along a 210m stretch for the seventh day of Chinese New Year touted by the community to be “everyone’s birthday”.
Now into its 15th edition, the annual event saw carrots, radishes, vegetables and crackers neatly arranged in two long rows for the mass toss.
Organising chairman Ooi Ean Keong said the ingredients on the main table were shaped into a horse and the digits 2026 to mark the Year of the Horse.
“The event enabled devotees and the public to come together and take part in the tossing,” he said on Monday night at the temple in Jalan Raja Uda.
People tossed the colourful mix using chopsticks while chanting auspicious phrases for good fortune.
Tourists Guo Na and Chen Xiao Lian, both 31, from Anhui in China, said they were fascinated by the scale of the tossing.
“We have watched lion dances and drum performances, but we have never seen a yee sang tossing of such scale,” said Guo.
Lim Chooi Fern, 40, who attended with her parents and siblings, said: “We have been coming here for many years as a family during Chinese New Year which helps strengthen our bond.”
At the launch, Sungai Puyu assemblyman Phee Syn Tze announced a RM20,000 allocation on behalf of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives Minister Steven Sim in support of the event.
Also present were DAP veteran Tan Sri Lim Kit Siang, Bagan Jermal assemblyman Chee Yeeh Keen, temple chairman Datuk Khor Wan Tat and Tah Wah Group founder and managing director Datuk Seri Hong Yeam Wah.
