Long time no see fellow readers!
Now that the weekend has graciously arrived and I’m enjoying the grace period before my program’s final project, I wanted to squeeze in the Dragonboat Festival post I promised to make over a month ago!
Wow, my heart pangs a little to formally recognize that it’s been several weeks since this Dragonboat adventure of mine, and that I will be leaving this beautiful country in twelve short days! I suppose that’s where the beauty of memories etched in hearts and cozy corners of the internet comes in and helps ease the pain of departure. Besides, I’ll be back. Nothing can keep the maniac away from her Mandarin paradise for too long!
Anyways, back to the fun stuff—talking about Chinese festivals! Though China has a rich selection of festivals and cultural ceremonies that pepper its lunar calendar, there are three that are most prominent: Chinese New Year in the winter, the Mid Autumn Festival (in, you guessed it, the middle of autumn), and the Dragonboat Festival! Since the Dragonboat festival occurs each year on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, and this year’s solar date landed in mid-June, I had the golden opportunity to experience my first authentic Dragonboat celebration!
The origin of this early summer holiday includes a fusion of dynastic history and folklore tied together with a patriotic theme. During a more chaotic era of China’s history properly titled the Warring States Period (around 475-221 BC), there was a revered official from the Chu state by the name of Qu Yuan. In spite of his passion for the state he served, the corruption and conniving of other royal clan members led him to be falsely accused and exiled on numerous occasions. During these forced periods of isolation, Qu Yuan channeled his fervor and worries for the Chu state in exquisite poems still famous today. As political tensions grew worse and Qu Yuan felt increasingly sorrowful towards his inability to offer aid, he drowned himself in the Miluo river. According to the folk legends circulated generations later, the villagers who knew and adored Qu Yuan made desperate attempts to search for his body on rowboats, clanging pots and dropping sticky rice balls into the water so that the fish would not eat his corpse. It is from this legend that the festival’s customs of eating sticky rice pyramids called “zongzi” and competing in dragonboat races are derived.
So being the foodie I am, I was particularly excited to try my first authentic “zongzi”, and it did not disappoint! I would definitely classify this angular treat as comfort food. It has the same vibe as a bowl of homestyle mashed potatoes at your grandma’s house or microwaved macaroni and cheese on a Sunday night. You first have to first untie the pyramid’s string and peel the bamboo leaves away to fill your mouth with the starchy embrace of glutinous rice. Then, a few bites in, you’ll reach the hearty filling, which varies depending on region and flavor preference. Mine had thinly stripped pork, beans, and a salted egg yolk. It’s a shame that I had to wolf the confection down before boarding a metro train to the boat races, so I don’t have any pictures of it. Luckily, Google images offers a much more professional representation:
I expected the dragonboat race our teachers were taking us to see would be a small-scale competition between teams of local schools and neighborhoods, but as it turned out, we stepped into an international boating arena. The weather was overcast and clammy, yet the enthusiasm of the teams and fans remained as palpable as the humidity. I couldn’t tell you which countries were competing against which, especially since it seemed like multiple rounds were happening at once, but the volume of cheers at one point clearly indicated when Taiwan’s teams had entered the ring.
A closeup of Taiwan Normal University's [台湾师范大学] female dragonboat team
One of the boat teams giving each other high-fives. I just loved the sportsmanship out here!
We admired the organized chaos of boat rowing for fifteen minutes or so, then returned to the event pavilion for a surprise activity I had never heard of. We were all instructed to line up with the native crowd to grab an egg. I wondered if these eggs were for some sort of field game like running with eggs on spoons, but also questioned how the riverside park could handle a messy stampede like that. Nope, these eggs were not for your average horseplay; they were for cultivating financial luck. I learned that a common game Taiwan locals would play to predict future wealth coming their way is to balance as many coins as you can on an egg without it falling over. The more you can stack, the more fortune you will have. Some of my classmates were successfully balancing student IDs on their coin skyscrapers, but it took me a hundred tries to get the egg upright and a hundred more to balance one yuan. I guess more college ramen dinners are in store for me when I get back to America!
The simple yet heartwarming delights of this year's Dragonboat Festival made a blast of a rainy Monday afternoon! I can't wait to one day have the chance to experience more Chinese festivals in their native setting.
That's all for today's post, but fear not, there are plenty more stories to come! I fully intend to continue my travel narrative as I return to the states and brave a new college semester, from my "alien" encounter at the Taipei planetarium to the crazy Seven Eleven store culture I've grown to know and love, and lets not forget the food! Farewell for now!
All The Best,
The Mandarin Maniac