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Dragon Boat Festival

Back2020/6/23 18:17:35

The Dragon Boat Festival, also called the Duanwu Festival, is celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth month according to the Chinese calendar. People always eat rice dumplings and watch dragon boat races to celebrate it. The festival is best known for its dragon-boat races, especially in the southern places where there are many rivers and lakes. It’s very popular. The rice dumpling is made of glutinous rice, meat and so on. You can eat different kinds of rice dumplings. They are very delicious. And Dragon Boat Festival is for Qu Yuan. He is an honest minister who is said to have committed suicide by drowning himself in a river. Overall, the Dragon Boat Festival is very interesting!

Brief Introduction of Qu Yuan

Qu was a minister of the State of Chu situated in present-day Hunan and Hubei provinces, during the Warring States Period (475-221BC). He was upright, loyal and highly esteemed for his wise counsel that brought peace and prosperity to the state. However, when a dishonest and corrupt prince vilified Qu, he was disgraced and dismissed from office. Realizing that the country was now in the hands of evil and corrupt officials, Qu grabbed a large stone and leapt into theMiluoRiveron the fifth day of the fifth month. Nearby fishermen rushed over to try and save him but were unable to even recover his body. Thereafter, the state declined and was eventually conquered by the State ofQin. The people ofChuwho mourned the death of Qu threw rice into the river to feed his ghost every year on the fifth day of the fifth month. But one year, the spirit of Qu appeared and told the mourners that a huge reptile in the river had stolen the rice. The spirit then advised them to wrap the rice in silk and bind it with five different-colored threads before tossing it into the river.

Traditions

Dragon Boat races

At the center of this festival are the dragon boat races. Competing teams drive their colorful dragon boats forward to the rhythm of beating drums. These exciting races were inspired by the villager's valiant attempts to rescue Qu Yuan from the Mi Luo river. This tradition has remained unbroken for centuries. Dragon boat racing is quite a spectacle, with drums beating, colorful flags waving, and thousands of people cheering on both sides of the river. Nowadays, it has become a popular sporting activity in Southern China. International dragon boat races are geld in Guangzhou and Hong Kong every year.

Zongzi

A very popular dish during the Dragon Boat festival is Zongzi. This tasty dish consists of rice dumplings with meat, peanut, egg yolk, or other fillings wrapped in bamboo leaves. The tradition of Zongzi is meant to remind us of the village fishermen scattering rice across the water of the Mi Luo River in order to appease the river dragons so that they would not devour Qu Yuan.

The taste of Zongzi, a pyramid-shaped dumpling made of glutinous rice and wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves to give it a special flavor, varies greatly across China. Zongzi is often made of rice mixed with dates in Northern China, because dates are abundant in the area. Eastern China's Jiaxing County is famous for its pork-stuffed Zongzi. In the southern Province of Guangdong, people stuff Zongzi with pork, ham, chestnuts and other ingredients, making them very rich in flavor. In Sichuan Province, Zongzi is usually served with a sugar dressing. Most people still maintain the tradition of eating Zongzi on the day of the Duanwu Festival. But the special delicacy has become so popular that you can now buy it all the year round.