Zongzi and Dragon Boat Festival

Writing this blog post made me realize with a sad hart...This was my last festival I would experience in Taiwan. And like all the others, Dragon Boat Festival was special in so many ways.

Dragon Boat Festival which was celebrated on the 2^nd of June 2014 on Western Calendars while on the Chinese Lunar Calendar it was on the 5^th day of the 5^th month.

I was very intrigued with the history and naturally the food behind the Dragon Boat Festival.
This festival has been held annually for more than 2000 years and the most popular story is the legend of Qu Yuan. I would like to share a short summary of this story for family and friends in South Africa just to give them an idea of why festivals like these are so special.

Qu Yuan was minister of the State Chu, and he fought against the powerful State of Qin…like in any Shakespear play you will always find a villain, even in Chinese stories you seem to find them… so a member of government of Qin went to the King and slandered Qu Yuan’s name and the King send Qu Yuan into exile.

To show his love and passion for his country Qu Yuan wrote many poems while in exile and he is regarded as one of the most famous poets in Chinese History.

But in the year 278BC, after finishing is last masterpiece poem – Huai Sha (Embracing the Sand), he walked into the river and drowned himself, rather than seeing his country taken over and ruled by the King and the State of Qin.

When locals heard of Qu Yuan’s death they ran to the river:  Fisherman sailed their boats up and down the river banging on the sides while others threw food such as eggs and rice into the river to attract the fish from destroying Qu Yuan’s body. Of course they never found his body.

Because he died on the on the 5^th day of the 5^th Lunar month people decided to commemorate him. So every year there will be Dragon Boat races, children have fun standing eggs and eating, selling and making of zongzi (rice dumplings) all this and more have become the main customs around this festival.

While this story touched me so deeply I decided to have a teacher’s conversation about it. My first question and the one I was most curious about:

Did they learn any of Qu Yuan’s poems while at school?

All the teachers (in total 5 of them) stared in shock at me…with a look of…You must be joking on their faces…my face, filled with anticipation waiting to hear some of this incredible poetry…finally the answer came: “No we never did…the poems are very old and there for the Chinese to difficult.” I was shattered….

But For the rest of the class we had a lot of fun though. We discussed the different customs around this time and because it is still spring The Chinese believe that this is the time to build their bodies and drive away diseases.

There is this bogus story that you can only stand an egg of this specific day at noon.

We all tried it two weeks before the specified date and it worked like a charm!!

Grace and Rachel concentrating hard

I went to the local market in Gangshan to buy some rice dumplings for a snack.

I wanted to know more about the dumpling and how to make it, so Eva promised me a hands on zongzi lesson with her mother…I was beyond excited.

One of my kiddies classes H1, also known as the angles and devils class helped me make an display for the school entrance and class B3 had fun standing eggs.

All the right English word from H1.

Keshin is over joyed with his success.

Angel, cool as a cucumber having no problem standing her egg.

Annie is very impressed with herself.

Upon finding out that I have an off day the Monday, I was excited to go cheer on some Dragon Boat racing.  Unfortunately Kaohsiung Municipality cancelled all racing for all the reasons I don’t understand.

So math duo, Terry and Eva treated me to some Japanese cuisine.

It was a meal with lots of firsts for me. Everything was fresh and delicious, not to mention the good service.

The menu

Appetizers of fresh cabbage drizzled with a sesame soy dressing and

shallow fried egg tofu Japanese style.

Eva's spread of crumbed fried chicken, rice, miso and savory egg custard.

Terry's spread of crumbed fried chicken on a red curry base with accompaniments.

My delicious red pork curry. 

I had a delicious meal of red curry with crumbed fried pork and rice. Miso is a traditional Japanese soup and accompanied with most meals...I'm not a fan, it tastes like soup for sick people...not to mention the savory egg custard which was a taste between fish and yes fish...not what I expected it to taste like, I couldn't stomach it. The curry on the other hand was full of flavor and for once I did not have to ask for salt.

We were presented with delicious in house made yogurt ice cream at the end of our meal and it was creamy and smooth, absolutely moreish.

Yoghurt Ice Cream, perfect end to the meal.

After lunch we went home for our rice dumpling lesson.  A lesson that turned out not to be as easy as I thought. For some reason I struggled to form and make the perfect pocket with the bamboo leaf that is filled with rice and meat.
After a couple of attempts and much help from Eva and her mother I seemed to get the hang of it. Then came the struggle to tie it up...

 My first rice dumpling. My smile says it all!

Eva having a go at the making of a rice dumpling.

I have made a short video of Eva's mother and her expert hand going through the process of making zongzi.

After filling, folding and the struggle to tie it was time to to cook the zongzi. Because the rice is raw, it is placed in a pot of boiling water, and needs to simmer for at least two hours.

 Tiiiiiiiiiiiiime is on my side.

 Smells good!

Eva taking them out!

Delicious Home Made Rice Dumpling

When the time was up, we sampled delicious home made rice dumplings for dinner.
Once again I have to thank Eva and Terry for a fantastic day in sunny and hot, yet beautiful Kaohsiung.
A big shout out to Eva's mother, who wasn't feeling well, for putting the finishing touches to a magical day.

Until my next "relaxed" happie
Mariza