Dragon Boat Festival

  In Taiwan, we have three important holidays. They are Chinese New Year, Dragon Boat Festival and Moon Festival.   

Today, I want to introduce one of them, the Dragon Boat Festival. We also called it Duanwu Festival and Double-fifth Festival. This festival has a story is about a poet whose name is Chu Yuan. He was a very talented and patriotic man, other chancellors were envy him. They set him up, and let him be kicked out from the country. He felt that the country doesn’t need him anymore, so he just jumped into the Mi Lo River. People were deeply touched by his patriotism, they tried to find him in Mi Lo River by their boat , but they couldn’t find him. People throw bamboo leaves filled with cooked rice into the river. They think the fish will eat the rice rather than their hero poet.

The boat races during the Dragon Boat Festival are traditional customs to attempts to rescue the patriotic poet Chu Yuan. The celebration is a time for protection from evil and disease for the rest of the year. Also we have some different practices, such as hanging healthy herbs “Moxa” on the front door, drinking hsiung huang wine, and displaying portraits of evil's nemesis, Chung Kuei. 

   

Besides, we eat “Zongzi”. Some people called it rice dumpling. To remember people, they throw bamboo leaves filled with cooked rice into the river. That becomes to the Zongzi. Zongzi is bamboo leaves filled with glutinous rice, but inside we put some meat, salted egg yolk, etc. It depends on your family. You can put different things into Zongzi.

One last thing, this activity is our special tradition that is really interesting and funny during the Dragon Boat Festival. If you can stand your eggs, you will have good luck for whole year.