Dragon Boat Festival

Today marks the fifth day of the fifth month of the traditional Chinese Calendar. An annual celebration of more than 2,000 years, known as Duan Wu Jie (Dumpling Festival) or Dragon Boat Festival is celebrate on this day.

Dragon boat festival is a boat races held with a traditional paddled long wooden boats, each ornamented with a colourful Chinese dragon’s head at the prow. Normally it’s around 20 to 35 meters in length and requires 30 to 60 people to paddle it depending on its boat size.

Zongzi, a glutinous rice dumpling, is the most traditional food and savoured during this festival.It is wrapped with bamboo or reed leaves which form a triangle shapes, and tied with a reed strings.The rice dumpling is mainly made of glutinous rice filled with meats, beans, and other fillings depends on own preferences.

Origin of the festival

There are a number of origin stories related to the Dragon Boat Festival, following is the most widely circulated version known.

Qu Yuan (340–278 BC) was a patriotic poet and a loyal official of the state of Chu during the Warring States Period. Slandered by corrupt officials who competed for royal favour, Qu eventually left the capital and lived a life of exile back in his hometown,

During his exile, Qu Yuan wrote a great deal of enduring poems showing his love and passion for his country, some of it was thee greatest poetry in the Chinese language of all time.After he got word that the Chu capital had fallen to the Qin army, he jump into a river and drowned himself in despair at his country’s downfall.

Locals furiously paddled down the river to try to save him, to no avail. In order to preserve his body, local people threw rice dumplings into the river as an offering to his spirit, and so that the fish wouldn’t feed on his body. They also continued racing along the water with beating drums to ward off evil spirits. Both of these giving rise to the holiday’s two best-known traditions.

Wishing all a Happy Dragon Boat Festival and fill up your tummy with Rice Dumpling!