An advertisement on the
superstore flyers reminded me that, our Chinese traditional festival “dragon
boat festival” is coming. At this time of year, my mom had always started to
make rice dumplings, as a celebration to this festival, as well as breakfast
for the whole family. Look at me now, since I came to Canada two years ago, I didn’t
celebrate the western festivals too much, but now, I almost forgot our
traditional ones.
Has anybody watched a
dragon boat race before? Here, in Calgary, the dragon boat race and festival
has been held by the Chinese society in the summer every year at North Glenmore
Park. Last year, I heard about this race
and went there with my boyfriend. The Glenmore Reservoir was so big that we
lost our way after we got off the bus. Shouts and cheers could be heard from
somewhere not far away when we walked towards there along the water. Finally when
we got there, the race was over. The crowd melted away, leaving two depressed
back shadows in the sunset.
Provided by Calgarydragonboatsociety
Why do Chinese people
eat rice dumplings to celebrate this festival? What’s the special meaning of
holding dragon boat race on that day? Okay, get on my boat. Let’s go upstream the
river of history and see what happened in the ancient China.
The protagonist of this
story was Qu Yuan, a famous poet of State of Chu in the Warring State Period. According
to the ancient records, he was banished due to some calumnies from oppositions. Some years later, when the capital of Chu was conquered by the
State of Qin, Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowninghimself in the Miluo River on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month.
Provided by Chinahexie
It is said that after
getting this news, the local people dropped some rice into the river to feed
the fish so they wouldn’t eat Qu Yuan’s body. However, Qu Yuan “told them in
the dream" that actually the rice was all eaten by the dragons in the river. If the
rice wrapped with bamboo leaves and tied with five-color strings, it could be
avoided. This is said to be the origin of rice dumplings.
The people there were
also said to have paddled out on boats to scare the fish away, which is said to
be the origin of dragon boat race.
Provided by www.nipic.com
There are some other folk
tales in China, among which the story of Qu Yuan could be counted as the most
representative and convincing one. Of course, there is no place for the view
that Dragon Boat Festival origin from another Asian country.
Provided by qq.tugai.net
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