Dragon Boat Festival

This weekend marks China's Dragon Boat Festival. Like some other holidays, the connection between the events and the traditions is a bit muddy, but the Chinese are nothing if not celebratory and traditional, so if you have to stretch to make a party happen, then so be it.

Together with Chinese New Year and the Autumn Festival, they are the three major Chinese celebrations--Dragon Boat is celebrated on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month. The celebration began as an event designed to ward off the evil spirits that brought disease and to find peace (in China's very tropical summer climate, diseases can be rampant).

The holiday is also said to commemorate the death of the poet Qu Yuan who died in 278 BC. Qu was a descendant of the Chu royal family, but when the king decided to ally himself with the increasingly powerful Qin family, Qu was banished for opposing the alliance.

During his exile Qu Yuan wrote a great deal of poetry, for which he's now remembered. When Qin finally conquered the Chu capital 28 years later, Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowing himself in the river.

The local people who admired the poet threw food into the river to feed the fish so that they would not eat Qu Yuan's body. The traditional snack zongzi is wha the people supposedly threw to the fish. The people then paddled out to in boats to retrieve Qu Yuan's body, which is the origin of dragon boat racing.

It's such a Chinese story, no? Conquering warriors, exiled poets, passionate suicides, evil spirits...and glutinous rice. I need to point out that the key word when it comes to zongi is "glutinous". The very sticky rice surrounds a filling of egg, sweet potato, meat, or bean paste. The rice is then wrapped in a bamboo leaf. There are several holiday treats that sound charming (read here about mooncakes) that sound charming, but are less so when you're trying to get it down. Kind of like lutefisk, I think.

The family vetoed traveling out of town this weekend. We are hiking the Great Wall with several other families on Thursday--I'll have to beat the other Hillmans with a stick if necessary to get out and see if we can see some boat races in town somewhere.