greetings~

salam people ^^,

祝你们端午节快乐！！！！！ (I was being text just now, that's why I remember it.. :p)

Well, "端午节" (Duānwǔ Jié), which means Dragon Boat Festival, which sometimes also known as "Festival of the Fifth Month " (cause it is being celebrated on each fifth day of the fifth month of the Lunar Calendar) is a traditional holiday associated with Chinese and other East Asian and Southeast Asian societies as well. It was back in the year of 2008 that this holiday was restored in China as an official national holiday.

On this day, people eat 粽子 "zòng zi" (a pyramid-shaped dumpling made of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves) and hold dragon-boat races. It is said, these activities commemorate the great patriotic poet Qu Yuan in ancient China.


Dragon-boat races that are being held:









粽子：
Since I learned this in my last semester's 中国文化课　(Chinese culture class) , and to be more exact, it is the ONLY part of my lessons that stuck on my very little tiny brain till now... heheh :p, so let me just share the story behinds it to those who doesn't know anything about this festival...

A guy named Qu Yuan, who lived in the State of Chu in the Warring States Period (475BC - 221BC)。Among the states of Qi, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhao, Wei, and Qin, the state of Qin was the strongest, and it wished to conquer the others to become even more powerful. Qu Yuan was a 大夫(a person who holds a very high-ranked position in the central government). He maintained that Chu's politics should be reformed and it should unite with the other states to resist the State of Qin. But his stand was opposed by crafty sycophants, who used malicious accusations to persuade the King of Chu not to adopt the idea and to drive Qu Yuan from the capital. Despite being exiled, Qu Yuan was still very concerned about the fate of the state. Later, when he heard the news that Qin had defeated the State of Chu, he was full of grief and felt that he had no power to save his motherland, so he drowned himself in the Mi luo River. It was the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in 278BC.

When people heard the news, they rowed their boats and tried to find his corpse, but failed. In order to keep the fish and shrimps from eating his corpse, people threw food into the river to feed them. Thereafter, on each fifth day of the fifth lunar month, people would throw food into the river. Later, they use reed leaves to wrap zongzi for this purpose. Thus the custom of eating zongzi and staging the dragon boat race was formed.

In conclusion, the dragon boat race is not only limited to the Dragon Boat Festival, but also spread to many places around the world include my country itself, and even became an important match. In most rural areas in China, the dragon boat race has taken root as a physical activity. People say "We would waste one year's farming rather than lose one year's dragon boat race."

Well, there you go people... Hope it will increase your to knowledge by 0.000001%! hehehe! Adios people!

Salam ^^,

-Buzz-