Duan Wu Jie

For those who may not be aware of this historical background, the story goes like this.........

This festival honours a patriotic poet and loyal official named Qu Yuan. His death is commemorated each year on the 5th day of the 5th month of the Lunar calendar, usually in June by the Dragon boat and Dumpling Festival.

According to ancient legend, Qu Yuan was a loyal court official in the court of the Chu Kingdom in old China, he was extremely capable and many of the other court officials were jealous of him, they plotted against him and he was dismissed from court.

Over the next 20 years, the Chu kingdom got weaker, he was very sad that his beloved country was invaded by another country, the Qin Kingdom and that the people were suffering a lot of hardships.

Feeling depressed that his country had come to such a state of destruction, the wise and honest Qu Yuan threw himself into the Ni Luo River and drowned in protest against corruption and injustice.

Qu Yuan was greatly respected by the people because of his love for his country and its people.

 

When they learnt of his death, they set out boats to look for his body. The fishermen furiously beat drums, gongs and cymbals in their desperate attempt to scare away the fishes. They beat the waters furiously with their paddles and threw rice wrapped in bamboo leaves (rice dumplings) into the river for the fishes and other sea creatures to feed on instead of devouring their hero's body.

Thus the Pyramid shaped dumplings made of glutinous rice known as Rice Dumplings (Zong Zi) are eaten to mark the festival and the legend of local fishermen racing out to save Qu Yuan is re-enacted in the form of Dragon Boat Races along the rivers and coasts as what we see today.

Zongzi

Today, 19 June 2007 (5th day of the 5th lunar month), is the Dumpling Festival - also known as Duan Wu Jie. Some call it the Zongzi Festival, and others the Dragon Boat Festival.

For the first time, I even received an SMS greeting from a friend in KL specially for this occasion. Later in the afternoon, around 3 p.m., another friend called to ask if I was working only half a day in view of the festival. As it turned out, our office carried on as usual. Still, I can’t help but feel that the Zongzi Festival is becoming increasingly “celebrated” - or perhaps more accurately, commercialized - compared to the past.

When I was younger, my parents would mark four festivals each year with a family reunion dinner: Chinese New Year, the Dumpling Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the Winter Solstice. These days, the tradition has been reduced to three, with the Mid-Autumn Festival quietly falling off the list.

I often wonder what great or exemplary deeds Qu Yuan must have accomplished in ancient China to be remembered so fervently by Chinese communities all over the world, especially in regions where Chinese are the majority. Surely, one might think, Confucius contributed more to Chinese civilisation and deserved a similar degree of commemoration?

But as I reflect, the difference seems obvious: no special food was ever created in memory of Confucius, whereas Zongzi immortalised Qu Yuan, and mooncakes came to symbolise resistance against the Yuan dynasty.

As always with the Chinese - and indeed with most people - food often carries more lasting power than the greatest of deeds!

Of course, there are exceptions. The life and teachings of Jesus Christ, for instance, left an immeasurable and lasting impact on humanity - and yet his remembrance is not tied to any single food.

Meal in Paragon, Singapore

Vivo City Singapore