The ABC Guide to Studying Abroad in Taiwan: 端午節快樂！

Happy Summer Solstice everybody!

So as you may know, this weekend is the Dragon Boat Festival--端午節 (Duānwǔ jié) also referred to in English as the Duanwu (from the Mandarin reading of the name) Festival or the Tuen Ng (from the Cantonese reading) Festival--and that means lots dragon boat racing, festivities, and of course, good food!

In honor of the Dragon Boat Festival, Google put up this lovely Doodle

So what exactly is the Dragon Boat Festival and what kind of festivities entail? Well the Dragon Boat Festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, hence it is also sometimes referred to as the Double Fifth Festival. This year, the actual day of the festival fell on June 20, although the festivities last for three days (as it is a national holiday and the 19th was a Friday, we got Friday off and today is the last day of festivities). The Dragon Boat Festival entails dragon boat racing, eating 粽子 (zòngzi), drinking 雄黃酒 (xiónghuángjiǔ), balancing eggs at 12:00 noon, and wearing fragrant satchels.

The most famous story of the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival dates back to the Zhou Dynasty and tells of poet and government official 屈原--Qu Yuan--who served as a member of the Royal Chu House in the ancient state of 楚--Chu--during the Warring States period (戰國時代). When the king decided to ally with the powerful 秦--Qin--state however, 屈原 opposed the alliance and for that, he was accused of treason and thrown into exile. Years later, the state of Qin captured 郢--Ying--the capital of the Chu state, and upon hearing the news, 屈原 in a fit of despair committed suicide by throwing himself in the 汨羅江--the Miluo River. The local people who admired him immediately rushed out onto the river in an effort to save him or at least recover his body. When his body could not be found however, they dropped balls of sticky rice into the river so that the fish would eat that instead of 屈原's body, which is said to be the origin of 粽子. Hence the dragon boat races symbolize the efforts of the people to save 屈原 while the festival commemorates his death.

The awesome part about studying in Asia--professors bring 粽子 for the students! Haha

Triangular or cone-like in shape, 粽子 can be sweet or savory

The ones we got were savory with pork filling

Self-made 粽子 from an event hosted by the International Student Information Services at NTU

Every year in Taipei, the 端午節 festivities are held at 大佳河濱公園--Dajia Riverside Park--by the Keelung River over in Zhonshan District. This year the events were from June 19 to June 21 and would include dragon boat racing, performances, and food. As this was an opportunity that I could not miss, on Friday, I went with one of my friends. Getting there however, was a bit of a challenge as we had to take a bus instead of the subway and do a bit of walking and it didn't help that the both of us are directionally-challenged (thank goodness for the navigation function on Google Maps). When we finally got there however, we were dismayed to find that the races seemed to be over; we didn't even see any boats in the river, but we saw the different teams (we later learned that the race didn't quite happen as one boat just ended up veering off-course or made a u-turn or something). There was however stands of foods, drinks, snacks, and little gift items to be sold. As we had just come from lunch and dessert, we were too full to get anything else, although I did get a Chia seed drink to quench my thirst. It was quite hot and humid that day.

One of the teams marching off in the distance

A dessert/drink car--that mango ice looked really good but unfortunately I was too full

We decided to head further into the park to check out the stage. It was pretty cool actually; they were speaking in Chinese as well as English and there was a pretty good turnout of teams from other countries including the Philippines, Israel, Australia, and Mainland China. Each team went on stage to perform and dance which was pretty cool, but I have to say, the team from the Philippines killed it with Filipino street dancing.

Dragon boat decoration

Stone dragon head

The team from the Philippines doing their dance

There was even a play area for kids

After watching for a little while longer, we decided to head back--we were feeling grimy and weary, and we had another event to head to but it was definitely a worthwhile event to check out and, as I was telling my friend, if the park weren't so difficult to get to, I would go back more often.