Dragon Boat Festival 端午節

Today is the Taiwanese national holiday, it is the Dragon Festival (端午節). This special day, we need to eat rice wrapped in bamboo leaves. This holiday is occurring on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. The Dragon Boat Festival is a significant holiday originated and celebrated in China. The Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated by boat races in the shape of dragons. They will divide into teams, each team will have thier own leader. Competing teams row their boats forward to a drumbeat racing to reach the finish end first.

According to Mid Magazine,"The boat races during the Dragon Boat Festival are traditional customs to attempts to rescue the patriotic poet Chu Yuan. Chu Yuan drowned on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in 277 B.C. Chinese citizens now throw bamboo leaves filled with cooked rice into the water. Therefore the fish could eat the rice rather than the hero poet. This later on turned into the custom of eating tzungtzu and rice dumplings. "

The celebration is a time for protection from evil and disease for the rest of the year. It is done so by different practices such as hanging healthy herbs on the front door, drinking nutritious concoctions, and displaying portraits of evil's nemesis, Chung Kuei. If one manages to stand an egg on it's end at exactly 12:00 noon, the following year will be a lucky one.

The Dragon Boats

The boats can be up to 120 feet in length with depth of about two and a half feet crewed by up to 40 paddlers. There is very little freeboard and a boat can easily become swamped. A large drum located in the middle or stern of the boat is beaten to maintain the paddlers rhythm.The bow of the boat is decorated with a dragon's head and the stern with its tail. These are detachable, and when the boat is not in use, are often kept in the local temple, reflecting the religious significance of the festival.

Special Food

To this day the Chinese people all over the world, even where there are no dragon boat races, celebrate the festival by eating the specially prepared glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves (種子).