Dragon Boat Festival (Duanwujie)

The Dragon Boat Festival, or Duanwujie, was actually last Sunday, but we decided to wait to report about it until this week because I was supposed to go this weekend with my MBA class for the annual alumni activity, complete with our own Dragon Boat races. Unfortunately this weekend was very rainy here in Shanghai and so we decided that it wasn't going to be much fun to hang out in the rain with the kids all weekend. So we didn't go this year, but next year, rain or shine, we will go.

We still want to share what this holiday weekend (Sat-Mon) is about since it is unique to China. The best way to explain it is to read the below article from the Shanghai Daily:

"Sunday marks the annual Dragon Boat Festival and it promises to be a feast for the senses - a cacophony of sound, a blaze of color and tastes and smells to excite, writes Tabitha Ang. For most, the month of June signifies the middle of the year. But according to the Chinese lunar calendar, the fifth month has just begun and people are preparing to celebrate another traditional festival - Duanwu Jie. Otherwise known as the Dragon Boat Festival, it takes place on the fifth day of the fifth month on the lunar calendar, and this year it falls on Sunday.

Legend has it that the Dragon Boat Festival commemorates the life and death of Qu Yuan (340-278 BC), a great poet. He lived during the Warring States Period (476-221 BC) before the unification of China in the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC. Qu tried unsuccessfully to warn the emperor against the expansionism of the Qin Kingdom. When the Qin took Yingdu, Chu Kingdom's capital, in 278 BC, Qu's grief was so intense that he drowned himself in the Milou River. Villagers used boats to try to save him but failed. Today's dragon boat races commemorate the rescue attempt while according to legend, rice dumplings were thrown into the river to prevent fish from eating the poet's body.

While dragon boat races provide a feast of festive action, glutinous rice dumplings called "zongzi" are also a tasty highlight. They are available all year round but come into their own during the Dragon Boat Festival. They are all made with glutinous rice but complemented with different fillings and wrapped in fresh reed leaves. They are then steamed or boiled in a pot.

Some are stuffed with diced chicken; others with diced duck, lean pork, egg yolk and mushroom.Some have no filling and are eaten with sugar or syrup. Yet, while the shapes and fillings vary from region to region, they are mostly wrapped either in triangular or pyramidal shape."

-- from an article in the Shanghai Daily.com

So no Dragon Boat pictures to show, but here are our "zongzi." Our favorite is the red bean paste kind, it's a bit sweet.

I know you're dying to try one now, so here's how you can do it yourself at home: (also from ShanghaiDaily.com)

1. Get some bamboo leaves about two palms long and three to four fingers wide.

2. Soak them in water and clean them with a soft brush. They will serve as the wrappers for the zongzi.

3. Soak glutinous rice in cold water for several hours. When the rice becomes fat, you are ready to start wrapping.

4. Take two or three bamboo leaves and overlap the edges to form a funnel.

5. Put glutinous rice inside, bend the leaf ends back to cover the funnel top and firmly wrap it up in the shape of a pyramid.

6. Secure with a string.

Got it?