PETALING JAYA: Malaysians may now be spoilt for food choices with trendy new offerings such as nasi lemak burgers, poke bowls and bubble tea, but when it comes to Chinese New Year reunion dinners, old traditions hold firm.

Full of symbolism and superstition, the dinner held on the eve of the Lunar New Year gathers family members from near and far to celebrate the upcoming year.

It is the most anticipated meal on the family calendar.

Although it has traditionally been held at the home of the family patriarch, the many hours of preparation that go into cooking the dishes mean that restaurants and hotels are increasingly playing host to these meals.

What hasn’t changed, though, is the significance of the dishes served.

A whole fish symbolises abundance, a chicken represents unity and noodles stand for longevity. These and other metaphors remain the foundation of the annual feast.

“Most people want to enjoy the same food they had during their childhood, so there hasn’t really been a lot of change in the menu throughout the years,” said Sally Chia, captain at the Dynasty Dragon Seafood Restaurant at IOI Mall, Puchong.

“The most important thing is that families get together to celebrate.

“The best dishes are always served at the reunion dinner, and a lot of the symbolism comes from the pronunciation of ingredients which sound similar to wishes such as health, wealth and happiness,” she explained.

Cindy Low, captain at the Hai Peng Crab House, Old Klang Road, echoed Chia’s comments, noting that the dinner holds tremendous symbolism which elder family members insist must be maintained.

“Abalone, sea cucumber and scallop are among the must-have delicacies as they represent good fortune, luck and new opportunities,” said Low.

“The reunion dinner remains a very traditional affair filled with superstition. This is especially true for the older members of the family.

“While some people may go for new flavours, most people still prefer old-fashioned food.”

Loh Kam Loon, chef at a restaurant along Old Klang Road, said that ingredients such as fish, prawn and mushroom have remained mainstays of reunion dinners for generations and are not likely to change anytime soon.

“There hasn’t really been much change to the reunion dinner menu,” he said.

“Although there may be requests that dishes be cooked with ‘new’ sauces such as asam pedas or three-flavour (spicy, sour and sweet), people’s taste buds have generally stayed the same.”

Lai Jian Wei, executive chef at Four Points by Sheraton Puchong, said that while tradition still holds sway over the dinner, he has observed changes in the sauces used for cooking, with more modern sauces replacing traditional ones such as soya or teo chew.

Lai has also successfully modified traditional favourites such as yee sang tossed salad by including octopus and substituting plum sauce with a sauce made out of dragon fruit.

“Most people are not looking for new food during the reunion dinner,” said Lai. “Certain concepts are now more stylish than before, but their essence remains the same.”

Stressing that no reunion dinner dishes have gone extinct or are less popular than before, Lai said that the menu depends on the demand for these delicacies.

Buddha Jumps Over The Wall or Buddha’s Temptation is an example: a luxurious Fujian hotpot. The legendary dish has up to 30 premium ingredients including shark fins and lips, Jinhua ham and quail eggs.

“We need to boil the stock for 12 hours and since there are a lot of dry ingredients which have to be soaked, we might need two or three days to get everything prepared,” said Lai.

The name Buddha Jumps Over The Wall is an allusion to the fabulous aroma of the dish cooking, so enticing that vegetarian monks leapt over the wall of their temples to enjoy the meat-based dish.

It is said that so delicious is the taste that even Buddha himself would jump over the wall for a bowl.

Want to try it? “We can cook it,” says Lai. “It just depends on whether there is a market for it.”

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 24 — All four suspected coronavirus cases in the country have tested negative, according to the Health Ministry.

The ministry confirmed that tests conducted on a suspected coronavirus (2019-nCoV) patient who is being treated at an isolation ward in a hospital in Sabah found the person to be negative for the virus.

Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the patient had symptoms of Influenza A and is recovering and in stable condition.

“This is to inform that the results of the detection and validation for 2019-nCoV virus on the patient by the Institute of Medical Reserach (IMR) confirmed that the patient is negative for Novel Coronavirus infection,” he said in a statement yesterday.

As such, he said, all four suspected 2019-nCoV cases reported so far, comprising two cases in Sabah and two cases in Selangor, were all negative for the virus.

In a statement issued earlier, Dr Noor Hisham had said the Health Ministry, through the National Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (CPRC), had received four suspected cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), namely two cases each in Selangor and Sabah. — Bernama

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 24 — Malay daily Utusan Malaysia is set to be relaunched later this year, first as print version together with sister publication tabloid Kosmo! and a digital version afterwards.

Several sources in the industry have confirmed that publisher Media Mulia Sdn Bhd (formerly Dilof Sdn Bhd) is currently recruiting staff to start working in February.

“It will likely be announced in February. However, the first edition might be coming out during Ramadan, or Aidilfitri in May,” one of sources told Malay Mail under the condition of anonymity.

However, it is unknown whether the new publication will recruit former staff of the daily, who effectively lost their jobs after original publisher Utusan Melayu (Malaysia) Bhd shut down its operations in October last year.

“There is a list of Utusan editors and journalists who will be offered jobs, but there is no guarantee, as a new editor-in-chief will take care of it,” the source said.

An advertisement by Media Mulia looking for new staff has been making rounds among former Utusan journalists since earlier this week.

Among the positions on offer are news editor, assistant news editor, reporter, creative designer, and photographer.

Meanwhile, another source told Malay Mail that the management of this new entity will be led by an editor who is currently running a business newspaper, with “one or two” former Utusan editors tasked to assist him.

“The new leader is tasked by the new owner to oversee its operation,” he said.

Malay Mail has requested for comments from said editor regarding the matter, but has yet to receive an answer.

The source confirmed that the new Utusan and Kosmo! will also be headquartered together with the New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad (NSTP) in Bangsar.

NSTP is owned by media conglomerate Media Prima Bhd. Aurora Mulia, the company linked to tycoon Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Albukhary, has major stakes in both Media Prima and Media Mulia.

In October last year, about 800 of Utusan employers lost their jobs as the nation’s oldest Malay language daily officially ceased operations after a prolonged financial crisis that saw its workers protest over unpaid wages.

In the month after, Entrepreneur Development Minister Datuk Seri Redzuan Yusof had announced that Utusan is set to restart its operations in early 2020 to help Putrajaya disseminate information on the current Pakatan Harapan administration’s initiatives and policies.

WASHINGTON: Democrats began laying out a detailed case on Wednesday for the removal of President Donald Trump, accusing him at his historic Senate impeachment trial of seeking to cheat to ensure reelection in November.

Adam Schiff, the head of the prosecution team from the House of Representatives, took the floor of the Senate for opening arguments after lawmakers were told by the sergeant-at-arms to remain silent “on pain of imprisonment”.

“President Trump solicited foreign interference in our democratic elections, abusing the powers of his office to seek help from abroad to improve his reelection prospects at home,” the California lawmaker told a hushed chamber.

“And when he was caught, he used the powers of that office to obstruct the investigation into his own misconduct,” said Schiff, who headed the probe that led to Trump’s Dec 18 impeachment by the Democratic-controlled House.

Schiff shrugged off Republican arguments that American voters – and not the Senate – should decide whether Trump should remain in the White House.

“The president’s misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won,” Schiff said.

“The president has shown that he believes he is above the law.”

Trump is accused of withholding military aid from Ukraine to pressure his Ukrainian counterpart to announce an investigation into Democrat Joe Biden.

“It was a smear tactic against a political opponent President Trump apparently feared,” Schiff said at the nationally televised Senate trial.

“President Trump withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to a strategic partner at war with Russia to secure foreign help with his re-election,” he said.

“In other words, to cheat.

“If this conduct is not impeachable, then nothing is.”

Interspersing his remarks with videos and graphics and references to the Constitution, Schiff appealed to the members of the Senate to put aside partisanship in deciding Trump’s fate.

“These are politically charged times,” he acknowledged.

“Tempers can run high, particularly where this president is concerned.”

But, Schiff said, “the Constitution entrusts to you the responsibility of acting as impartial jurors”.

‘Fairly quickly’

Republicans, who hold a 53 to 47 edge in the Senate, have shown little inclination, however, to break ranks with a president who has a history of lashing out ferociously at his perceived enemies.

A two-thirds majority – or 67 senators – is needed to remove Trump from office and a series of votes on the ground rules for the trial on Tuesday followed strict party lines.

Republicans shot down repeated efforts by Democrats to introduce White House witnesses and documents at the start of just the third impeachment trial in US history.

Trump, who was attending the World Economic Forum in Davos as the historic trial got underway on Tuesday, blasted the proceedings as a “witchhunt” and a “hoax” and said he expected the Senate to clear him “fairly quickly”.

The president defended the Republicans’ rejection of Democratic efforts to force former national security advisor John Bolton and others to testify at his trial saying of Bolton, for example, that it would present a “national security problem”.

“John, he knows some of my thoughts,” Trump said.

“He knows what I think about leaders. What happens if he reveals what I think about a certain leader and it’s not very positive?”

House impeachment managers have 24 hours over three days to make their case that Trump is guilty of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

White House lawyers then have 24 hours to present their defence.

Senators will then have an opportunity to ask written questions to be read out aloud by US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who is presiding over the trial.

Roberts’ role is mostly ceremonial but he did warn both sides during heated exchanges on Tuesday to watch their decorum.

“Those addressing the Senate should remember where they are,” Roberts said.

‘Quit obsessing’

Trump’s personal attorney, Jay Sekulow, said the White House will “challenge aggressively the case that they’re putting forward”.

“There’s a lot of things to rebut and we’ll do it in an orderly and systematic fashion,” he told CNN.

The next few days are likely to be an endurance test for members of the Senate, some of whom are in their 80s.

Senators are barred from having their cellphones and computers at their desks and they have been spending their time chatting quietly or scribbling on notepads when not listening intently.

The four Democratic senators seeking to challenge Trump for the White House have been forced to take time off from campaigning ahead of the first state caucuses to choose their party’s nominee in Iowa on Feb 3.

Reaction to the impeachment trial has been mixed among voters.

“The general consensus I feel I hear from people is ‘Why don’t they just freaking do their jobs and quit obsessing over this?’” said Rick D’Agostino, the owner of the Sheffield Lanes bowling lanes in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania.

Flavio Quintela, a Washington businessman, said he thought the impeachment trial was “more theatrical now than anything”.

“Because, you know, the Senate is most likely not approving it,” Quintela said.

“It really looks like some electoral move, which I don’t think is going to work.”

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia Airlines’ first managing director, Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahman, passed away in his sleep at the Gleneagles Kuala Lumpur hospital in Ampang last night.

He was 87.

“Our heartfelt condolences to the family and relatives of the late Tan Sri Aziz Bin Abdul Rahman, former chairman of Malaysia Airlines System Berhad, who passed away peacefully late last night,” said the National Union of Flight Attendants Malaysia (Nufam) on its Facebook page.

Aziz joined then Malaysia Airlines System in 1971 and held the post of CEO and MD from 1982 to 1991. He left the company with a RM5 billion surplus when he retired.

The Kelantan native was among the former MAS employees and retirees who offered their services to turn around the country’s troubled flag carrier last year amid calls to shut down the loss-making airline.

A report yesterday stated that MAS will need up to RM21 billion of taxpayers’ money to stay afloat until 2025.