Like so many of the legit, public holidays like Mid- Autumn and Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival is just filled with symbolism, traditions, and history. And like all the other good festivals, Dragon Boat has a legend to go along with it.
*Ahem*
According to legend, long ago (like 300BC long ago), there was a poet named Qu Yuan who lived in China during the Warring States Era. Qu Yuan was smart and powerful, working in the high offices of the Chu royal house during the Zhou Dynasty. However, when the king decided to make an alliance with the powerful Qin state, Qu Yuan made his displeasure known and was banished and considered a traitor.
While he was in exile, Qu Yuan wrote a lot of poetry (to this day, he is still considered to be one of China's first poets). He was exiled for 28 years until the Qin state betrayed the Chu family and took over the Chu state's capital of Ying. Overcome with grief, Qu Yuan killed himself by throwing himself into the Miluo River.
It is said that the local people raced out in their boats to save him. This is the beginning of the dragon boat races. When his body could not be found, they dropped balls of sticky rice into the river so that the fish would eat the rice instead of Qu Yuan's body.
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| A statue of Qu Yuan in Jingzhou, at the site of his drowning. |
During the Festival, people take part in different activities such as eating certain foods, drinking certain drinks, playing games, and, of course, racing dragon boats.
The special food for this holiday (because every Chinese holiday needs a specific snack for you to eat just like Mid-Autumn Festival has moon cakes) is called zongzi 粽子. Zongzi are really popular in China, not just during Dragon Boat Festival, but all year round (usually the school store on our campus sells them for breakfast). They are made of rice and different fillings all mushed together and wrapped in bamboo leaves. Usually they are filled with red bean paste but also chicken, pork fat, chestnuts, or duck eggs. The reason why we eat these during the Dragon Boat Festival goes back to the legend of Qu Yuan and when the locals threw rice balls into the Miluo River to stop the fish from eating Qu Yuan's body. I was lucky enough to receive a zongzi as a gift from one of the contestants at the Star of Outlook competition last weekend (you can read all about that here).
The zongzi that a contestant made for the judges on Sunday's competition.
Another thing that goes along with the Dragon Boat Festival is the desire to ward off evil spirits or disease (the Chinese are kind of germaphobes). One of the ways that they do this is by drinking reälgar wine. I'm not sure if I am just ignorant but I had no clue what this was (and obviously did not take part in it this year) so I had to look it up. Reälgar wine, or Xionghuang wine 雄黄, is believed to be a way to protect yourself against snakes, disease, and evil spirits... It's also a pesticide and an insecticide used against mosquitoes. The Chinese will mix alcohol with the reälgar and drink it in large quantities during the Dragon Boat Festival. The Dragon Boat Festival and Summer Solstice is believed to coincide with the force of yang. Alcohol is considered to be a part of yin, so to balance out the yin and the yang around them, adults are encouraged to drink as much of this wine as possible. Children who cannot drink (or people like myself who have no desire to drink basically poison) will have the character 王 (meaning "king") drawn on their foreheads with the alcohol to also ward off bad energy and evil spirits. I am not sure how common this practice is today... So many people drink beer or baijiu all the time, it's kind of hard to tell when they're drinking for a holiday or a special occasion...
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| Not my photo... I didn't even know drinking this stuff was a thing until I started writing this! |
Of course, the most popular thing to do during the Dragon Boat Festival is to go and watch the dragon boat races.
The dragon boats are what the holiday is known best for and that is because it is probably the most exciting part of the celebration. Dragon boat races take place all over China, Hong Kong (my friend, Abby, is on a team!), Macao, Singapore, Malaysia, and even parts of America that have large Chinese communities. Each boat can be 40-100 feet long and they are all painted in bright colors like blue, red, and yellow with the head of an open mouthed dragon at the front, leading the way. I read that, depending on the length of the boat, there can be up to 80 rowers in the boat but all the ones that we saw only had 15 team members. There are men who row, two men who steer, and three musicians (drums and cymbals). The rowers paddle in time with the music being played and the first team to make it through the course and retrieve a flag is the winner.
Being Americans, the only part of the festival that Adam and I really cared about was the dragon boats. We got a late start and probably missed most of the boats in the race but we did see a few here and there.
Hangzhou Normal University's Cangqian campus is located about a 20 minute bus ride from the edge of the city of Hangzhou and about 40 minutes from the city center. It was once a small farm town but lately it's had schools, apartments, and business complexes spring up but there are still some hints of what it was like before the city began to expand. The mountains clearly visible in the distance (when the pollution isn't too bad), less noise, fewer people (hard to believe), and the canals and streams scattered everywhere. As Adam and I were riding our bikes to our final destination, we passed over a bridge and heard the telltale sound of cymbals and shouts from the water below. A small crowd had gathered to watch several dragon boats paddle by. People were clapping and cheering, and as one member of a team fell into the water, everyone started laughing. You can see how the dragon boat races bring the community together even on hot, sunny days.
Many would think that the dragon boat races would take place at West Lake (the #1 tourist attraction in all of Hangzhou... seriously, just try to visit this city and NOT get asked to go there) but they actually take place at the Xixi Wetland National Park. Yes, right outside of Hangzhou--the largest city in all of Zhejiang Province--is a national park. The Xixi Wetland is the only wetlands national park in all of China and it dates back 1,800 years. Today, it has shrunk in size to about 2,800 acres. It has an ancient fishing village, a bunch of lakes, ponds, and streams, silkworm feeding demonstrations, and, of course, an annual dragon boat race. It's no surprise that Xixi is where the races are--everywhere you look there is just tons of water!
Adam and I wandered through the blazing sun with our Dairy Queen (no judging). At one point, I became a little too Chinese and busted out the umbrella, realizing that I had forgotten to put sun screen on--my neck and chest are still burnt to prove it!
After walking down the road for about 20 minutes (we were getting ready to give up!), we dropped the 80元 for the entrance fee, got two free bracelets (yay for free stuff!), and we began to wander through the park.
It really is like a little sanctuary in the middle of the chaos that is China. Yes, you have to dodge out of the way of the trolley cars but it is surprisingly quiet, no one stares at you or makes you feel like a freak for being white. For many people, it was their holiday out with the family and that was all they cared about.
We were following the signs (all in Chinese) to try and find where there might be dragon boats. We got lost and turned around many times but the views were beautiful and the company was so much better. We meandered along the canals and along the trees, snapping pictures, watching the dragon flies zoom by, and just talking. It was nice to be off of work and doing something. We didn't have to work on anything for school, we didn't have to sit around in our apartments and wait for anyone--we were free to do whatever we wanted, we were outside in the fresh air.... and I loved every minute of it.
While we were wandering, we FINALLY heard that sound of the gong ringing in the distance, announcing that a dragon boat was coming by. By this point (3 o'clock in the afternoon?), we had just assumed that we had missed all the boats that were racing. But we were lucky to catch the two slowest boats of the day! The first group was slowly making their way through and when they looked up and saw two foreigners on the bridge above them, they started shouting, "Hi! Hello!" up to us and in return, we shouted back, "Jia you!" The second group wasn't as good... Basically, they crashed into the shore... right in front of the laowai... How embarrassing. A few boats by our campus and the two here in Xixi: our dragon boat race expectations had been met (I guess we're pretty easy to please).
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| Team One was pretty awesome |
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| Team Two... not so much... |
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I had heard that the giant rubber duck was in Hangzhou for a few weeks while doing research on Xixi Wetlands before the dragon boats races. For those of you who don't know (I don't think it's too popular outside of Asia, honestly), the big rubber duck is a floating sculpture that travels around the world and just so happens to be the world's largest rubber ducky. It was designed by a Dutch artist, it is absolutely huge (1,300 lbs.), and it has been traveling all around the world to different harbors and other bodies of water since 2007. Some popular stops have been Sao Paulo, Osaka, Auckland, Sydney, Hong Kong, Pittsburgh, Baku, Beijing, Norfolk, and now Hangzhou until July 15th.
I learned that it was in Hangzhou and all of a sudden, I had a great need to go and see it. I'm a sucker for cheesy, kitschy tourist traps (honestly, anything kitsch)--I'm registered on the Roadside America website and I force my family to visit places like the shoe tree in Lyndonville and the giant lobster on Islamorada. I LOVE KITSCH.
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| Bewitched statue in Salem, 2011 |
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| The Lyndonville Shoe Tree, 2011 |
The Giant Lobster, 2011 and 2013
You know you have found the love of your life when he is willing to listen to you shout, "We gotta find that duck!" every time a child would walk by with a duck stuffed animal, when he is willing to wander aimlessly through the wetlands of Hangzhou, and actually take photos of you with a giant rubber ducky.
We were about to give up when Adam spotted a splash of color high up in the trees. THE RUBBER DUCK. We quickly made our way (got lost once) to the other side of the wetlands and stood in the glory that is the world's largest rubber ducky.
The Chinese just love cute things... and I fear that this love of cuteness has rubbed off on me. I was way too excited to find this thing and I do think it was absolutely adorable. All of that wandering, walking, and angered muttering had culminated to this moment.... and three photos later, we were done.
I had spotted some sweet swag (the Chinese just love charging money for everything) and I did want to get something from the Dragon Boat Festival. My eyes found an actual rubber ducky designed to look exactly like the one floating in the water behind me... but 100 times smaller and 100 times more expensive than it should have been. The 99元 (over $30) price tag made me cringe and, sadly, I had to put the rubber ducky back. EVERYTHING was over priced... But Adam came through again. He came back to me with a rubber ducky fan--a much wiser purchase and much more meaningful gift (plus it was really hot so it was the most useful thing they were selling). On our way out of the park, we found a man on the side of the path, selling knock off ducky merchandise. It wasn't official, but I got myself a 30元 duck stuffed animal (which I may regret someday since I desperately need to start saving money for the future... but at that moment, I just wanted my rubber ducky swag).
I'm pretty sure Dragon Boat Festival was the last holiday I will get to celebrate for this school year (I only have two more days of classes... HUZZAH!!) but it was a great one to end on. Mine and Adam's day at Xixi Wetlands was probably one of my absolute favorite days that I have had here in China since I got here over nine months ago. It was just a nice, simple day where neither of us had any responsibilities and all we had to do was whatever we wanted to do. We got to take part (a little bit) in the dragon boat races and (more importantly in my eyes) we are able to say that we got to see the big rubber duck.
Happy Dragon Boat Festival!!
端午节快乐
It looks like summer is almost here!!
Until Next Time,
Amanda
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