The Dragon Boat Festival was the first Chinese holiday to be included in UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This festival occurs on the fifth day of the fifth month in the lunar calendar – 31 May in 2025. The festival is celebrated by holding dragon boat races and eating sticky rice dumplings called zongzi. Our U3A joined in the festivities.
Sticky rice dumplings
In preparation for this festival, Class Leader Lan Tiet offered a demonstration of making sticky rice dumplings with different fillings such as chicken, pork or seafood with mushrooms and other vegetables, all inside a sticky rice coating and wrapped in bamboo leaves. Great fun was had as many class members attempted to wrap their dumplings in the stiff leaves – with varying levels of success. See the photo gallery here.
Dragon boat races
While the dumplings were cooking, paper dragon boat races were held, with class members blowing their team’s boat across the tables. These races caused great hilarity.
Thank you to Lan and all who participated
Lan generously donated the entire $210 in contributions toward the cost of ingredients to the Cancer Council. Thanks to everyone who contributed.
The legend according to Wikipedia
“The story best known in modern China holds that the festival commemorates the death of the poet and minister Qu Yuan (c. 340–278 BC) of the ancient state of Chu during the Warring States period of the Zhou dynasty.
A cadet member of the Chu royal house, Qu served in high offices. However, when the king decided to ally with the increasingly powerful state of Qin, Qu was banished for opposing the alliance and even accused of treason. During his exile, Qu Yuan wrote a great deal of poetry. Eventually, Qin captured Ying, the Chu capital. In despair, Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowning himself in the Miluo River.
It is said that the local people, who admired him, raced out in their boats to save him, or at least retrieve his body. This is said to have been the origin of dragon boat races. When his body could not be found, they dropped balls of sticky rice into the river so that the fish would eat them instead of Qu Yuan’s body. This is said to be the origin of zongzi.”