No school today and tomorrow because of Dragon Boat Festival Day. BUT we have to make up Friday's classes on Sunday. Bah. Humbug. To avoid teaching on Sunday, we've already had our Friday students make up the missed class, but just found out we must hold the make-up classes on Sunday. We were the scheduled speakers for church Sunday and friends were going to share a meal together after church to celebrate the three of us with birthdays. Double bah. Double humbug. I wish China had a Sabbath Day.
But on to Dragon Boat Festival Day. This day honors a political dissident who, over 2,000 years ago, lost a power struggle against a corrupt government and killed himself by jumping into a river. (It seems a little odd for China to honor a political dissident since it's such a no-no here to dissent.) The boat-racing part of the day is a reenactment of how people got in their boats and raced in an unsuccessful attempt to save the dissident when they learned that he jumped into the river.
A part of this holiday's tradition is to eat sticky rice cakes wrapped in bamboo leaves because 2,000 years ago the locals threw them into the river to divert fish from nibbling at the body of the honored dissident. So today in our kitchen we're loaded with bean-filled, bamboo-wrapped sticky rice as the gracious Chinese are so good at making sure we two foreigners get a taste of their festival food. I'm afraid we're going to have them sitting on our shelf for some time. (All except for the one I tried.) We are such non-adventurous China-food eaters. Shame on us.
I am so impressed with how much detail any Chinese can give me about the ancient or modern history of each of their holidays. I guess that's what comes with going to school from early childhood for six days a week from 9 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
3 comments:
very very interesting.....hmmm....
Many happy returns of the day (and my condolences for having to work on Sunday).
The main reason people honor him is not because of his identity as a political dissident, but as a patriot and poet. He served in a kingdom as a minister, but his king was a self-righteous fool and wouldn't listen to him. Due to the king's incompetence, his kingdom was about to perish in an impending war. The patriot tried to awake the king by doing something extreme, so he jumped into a river... but the king was unmoved and remained to be a fool, and everybody knows the ending.
Sorry for having to work on Sunday.
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