The Dragon Boat Festival (Duanwu Festival) is celebrated by the Chinese on the fifth day of the fifth month on the Chinese calendar (June 8 this year).

The festival is celebrated to commemorate ancient poet Qu Yuan, who jumped into a river and killed himself after his country was conquered by the other.

Locals who admired his patriotism fed rice dumplings to the fishes in the river which he committed suicide so that the fish would not disturb his body… some others also rode on boats and beating on drums to scare away the fishes for the same purpose.

My homemade rice dumpings
My homemade bakchang

These acts are still practiced by the Chinese these days, albeit heavily modified. People these days would take part in dragon boat race and eat traditional rice dumplings called zongzi to celebrate the festival.

Dragon boat race is a huge tourist attraction in some places (Hong Kong, Taiwan etc.) during the festival each year.

Zongzi and Bakchang

Zongzi is made of glutinous rice stuffed with different fillings and wrapped in bamboo leaves. Different region would have their own uniqueness in terms of flavours and shapes. It can be plain, sweet or salty.

The common zongzi that we made at home here is stuffed with nuts and meat. We normally called it bakchang literally meat-zongzi in Hokkien dialect).

Btw, my Chinese birthday is one the same day with this festival… we don’t often celebrate birthday according to Chinese calendar though.


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5 Responses to “Dragon Boat Festival, zongzi, bakchang”

  1. bb on June 10th, 2008 at 8:46am

    i learned the history of this festival since young in my chinese class and i always thought that it is very meaningful.
    my mom always makes those zongzi, but i don’t like them, salty or sweet.
    she makes so much every year, and they just gets left over.

  2. Yein Jee on June 10th, 2008 at 12:21pm

    I like zongzi, but can’t have much… glutonious rice bad for my stomach somehow… I never failed to get gastric for a couple of days after the festival.

  3. kyon on June 11th, 2008 at 1:59am

    i don’t like zongzi, but i like ‘luo mai kai’ - know what am i saying? :)

  4. bb on June 11th, 2008 at 1:06pm

    kyon…
    i totally know what you’re saying!
    i know they look similar, but taste so much different.
    but it’s probably because of the msg, haha.

  5. Yein Jee on June 11th, 2008 at 3:43pm

    I like luo mai kai too… lol msg.


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