Yesterday was the Dragon Boat Festival and people back home are eating zongzi and i don get to eat any...sigh!!!!...i miss my grandma's special zongzi cos hers are the only ones i would eat... grandma uses mostly lean pork with crushed peanuts mixed well together with 5-spice powder... and the zongzi she makes are by far more superior to any other zongzi in the world!!! and i don care what anyone says!!! Sylvia and mom teased me mercilessly cos i can't eat most of the zongzi they made with my grandma!!!!!
well, this prompted me to do research on what the Dragon Boat Festival is all about so I can explain it FULLY to Rick now ( like a true chinese!) lol...there are many versions to the legend but as far as i understand it, this is how it goes...
A long time ago, there was this very famous poet who was also minister or advisor to the emperor of that time. His name was Qu Yuan. So anyway, the other ministers were jealous of him and ganged up to persuade the emperor to ignore his advice because they were at war with someone else during that time. Qu Yuan was apparently so disappointed and disgusted by everything he jumped into the MiLuo River and drowned himself. When people heard, they raced across the river to look for his body but of course, they couldn't find it. Nobody wants the fish to eat his body so they threw rice dumplings into the river as fish food. From then on, we have Dragon Boat races and we eat zongzi to commemorate Qu Yuan.
This poem was Qu Yuan's last poem about how he felt.
Many a heavy sigh I have in my despair,
Grieving that I was born in such an unlucky time.
I yoked a team of jade dragons to a phoenix chariot,
And waited for the wind to come,
to sour up on my journey
3 comments:
wah... nice info on the dragon boat festival... so, was Rick impressed by the story?
sigh!!!... nope... he didn't say anything cos it was dinner time and he was hungry!!!
oh and all he said was he liked the poem
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