Yang Mei

yangmei_szdaily@163.com

A GROUP of EyeShenzhen WeChat followers were in-vited to mark the Dragon Boat Festival in the traditional Chinese way at the Co-talk Language Center in Nanshan District on Saturday. This year’s Dragon Boat Festival (duanwu), a festival celebrated in China and other Asian countries, falls May 30.

The festival occurs on the fifth day of the fifth month of the traditional Chinese calendar, which is the source of the festival’s alternative name, the Double Fifth Festival. The story best known in China today holds that the festival commemorates the death of the poet and minister Qu Yuan (about 340-278 B.C.) of the ancient State of Chu during the Warring States period (475-221 B.C.).

During the celebrations, guests first watched the teachers of the language center perform a traditional Chinese tea ceremony during which they sipped various kinds of Chinese tea and learned about the differences between them. Then they were introduced to the history of the festival and read verses from “Songs of Chu” (chuci), an anthology of Chinese poetry traditionally attributed mainly to Qu and Song Yu from the Warring States period.

Later, expats traveled back in time and tried on ancient Chinese clothing, and learned to greet each other in the ancient Chinese way. They were also taught about the design of the outfits such as overlapped collars, waist belts and long wide sleeves.

The most interesting and enjoyable part, according to most of the participants, was learning how to make zongzi, glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves, a traditional Chinese delicacy eaten during the festival.