Zee Wong

    zedwong@163.com

    THE summer brings us not only the lovely sunshine, but also more insects and worms. Nowadays, we buy liquid repellents to avoid mosquito bites. In ancient China, people used realgar to repel five poisonous creatures: snakes, centipedes, scorpions, spiders, and toads. To take precaution of these harmful creatures, Dragon Boat Festival was celebrated before the advent of summer on May 5 of the lunar calendar. For this festival, people drink realgar wine, eat zongzi and hold dragon boat races.

    Zongzi has been handed down as a traditional food for about 1,700 years. It is a glutinous rice ball with rich fillings that comes in two styles, salty and sweet. The salty filling usually includes ham, salted egg yolk, peanuts, and chestnuts. The sweet filling could be bean paste of many kinds. The glutinous rice ball is wrapped in reed leaves and then shaped similar to a horn of an animal. This implies that people worshipped animals in hope for a good harvest.

    During the Dragon Boat Festival, people enjoy zongzi along with the exciting dragon boat races. By tradition, there are supposed to be 36 athletes on each boat, which is carved and decorated as a dragon. The athletes include 26 rowers, a flag guardian, two helmsmen, a person who sings prayers to god, two drummers, two gong players, and two incense holders. Why such a complicated crew? It is related to a legendary story.

    Around 276 B.C., many rowing teams volunteered and set out to the Miluo River to salvage a member of the imperial family of the Chu State. Unfortunately, the effort was futile. That imperial person was Qu Yuan. Qu was a genuine official. Although he came from an imperial family, he wished to appoint people based on merit, not social status. Moreover, Qu was a poet. He was brilliant, but sentimental. He committed suicide in the Miluo River.

    When the state of Chu was facing a troubled time, a period when the Qin State (the first empire to be) was eyeing it, Qu advocated fighting against Qin, but many people in the Chu cabinet chose betrayal and, hence, they sent loyal officials, including Qu on exile. Qu was extremely disappointed in his state, but he did not want to see his home fall into the hands of Qin. Hence, Qu drowned himself in Miluo River on May 5.

    People were so aggrieved for Qu’s death, they made zongzi and threw them into the river as sacrifices to Qu’s spirit. The original version of zongzi was actually glutinous rice cooked in bamboo tubes. In order to prevent the fish in Miluo River from eating it, people then made rice balls and wrapped them with reed leaves.

    Gradually, it became a tradition to eat zongzi each year on the festival to honor Qu. The salvage act of rowing boats also became the dragon boat race. This race is now modernized and downsized to 23 people in the crew. However, it has become a greater celebration. It is celebrated as the Dragon Boat Festival in countries such as China, Vietnam, North Korea, South Korea and Singapore.