Tag Archives: Dragon Boat Festival

Chinese American Dragon Boat Festival Meal

Text: A tradition, during the dragon boat festival the informants’ family will always make “zhong zi, it is bamboo leaves soaked in water then inside then you have sticky rice with soy sauce, there is also pork belly or red dates. And it is made by steaming them. In Asia they race dragon boats. His family does it every year. Even if his family is not home. He likes pork the most because it’s more savory. It can also be salted egg yolk in the middle. 

Context: The informant doesn’t know much more about the dragon boat festival, His family doesn’t watch it, he loosely knows what they look like but his family cares about the festival that much. To him it’s more about eating a specific food during a specific time of year. Both his parents were born in China but he was born here. 
Analysis: The informant’s family tradition of making “zhong zi” during the Dragon Boat Festival shows how folklore adapts to fit contemporary lifestyles, especially within diasporic communities. Despite limited engagement with the festival’s traditional activities like dragon boat racing, the annual preparation of zhong zi serves as a powerful cultural symbol, preserving their Chinese heritage. This practice highlights the role of food in maintaining ethnic identity and familial bonds, even when historical narratives are not fully embraced. It shows how traditions can persist through adaptable, personally meaningful elements, such as shared meals during cultural festivals.

Duanwu

Nationality: Chinese American
Age: 23
Residence: Irvine, CA
Language: English

Text:

“This one is called Duanwu. It’s related to this actual poet that was in Chinese history. I don’t remember when was his time. I know his name is Qu Yuan. This poet was also like a sort of commander for an army or something. Either way, he is a very very loyal person, he was like very loyal to his country. And then I think one day, the empire believed some like bad people or whatever the empire did, the empire believed that he is about to betray the country. So they jailed him and then he ended up suiciding by jumping into a lake. And then from that time onward, every Duanwu people eat something called Zongzi. It tastes really good. It’s like this thing made of sticky rice and you have like either meat which or you have something that is like beans and is really sweet. And is called sweet Zongzi. It’s usually triangular and it has these bamboo leaves covering it and it has creams. But it tastes really good and if you see it in a market you should buy it. But yeah the point being that people will sometimes put like Zongzi they will throw it into the lake. The idea is that the fish will eat the Zongzi and not Qu Yuan’s body. But yeah it tastes good um something else that people do on this day is that there is usually like Yuan Xiao, its called translated into light festival. It’s all the fun stuff, it’s a kind of carnival thing. And people usually put Dēnglóng in the river. It’s like this light thing. Sometimes it’s like a paper boat with light. I don’t know they put it in the river with their best wishes. Yeah, but that part I haven’t personally experienced it, I’ve just read about it and my friends have gone.”

Context: The informant was born and grew up in China before moving to the United States to attend High School. The informant has not personally experienced Duanwu or Yuan Xiao, but has heard about them through family, friends, and by reading about it. The informant has eaten Zongzi, however not for a particular occasion.

Analysis: Duanwu is also known as the Dragon Boat Festival. It is celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. Duanwu serves as a way to celebrate the patriotism of the poet Qu Yuan. Eating culturally specific foods is a way to strengthen people’s national pride. The use of specific food such as Zongzi and the story of Qu Yuan work to create a sense of cultural pride and patriotism

Dragon Boats Legend

Performance Date: 2020

Piece
It was originally a native tribe holiday. A dragon boat competition. Rowboat? Like rowboats competition, in the beginning of summer and you had lots of special food. After the festival, the weather stays warm.
In the old days, China was always a kingdom. This was before China unified to one kingdom. At that time, there were several kingdoms and there was always war, it was not very peaceful. There was a king, back before… it was called the three kingdom era. There were more than three kingdoms but that must have been the three major ones. There was a test to see who had the most knowledge, every year, and the winner would get to advise the king. The poets were very knowledgeable in literature, and there was one poet, Qu Yuan, who was very loyal to his king, but another king was trying to lure him with his daughter to marry. Qu Yuan was a very good advisor, but his king did not listen to him, so Qu Yuan worried that his kingdom would be swallowed by the others. So at the end, he gives up on the king and was so sad that he jumped into the river and die. The people of the kingdom tried to find his body and that is where the dragon boat competition started. They also made a lot of bout-zons and threw them in the river in hope that the fishes would not eat him.
Context
The informant heard this story from their mother during a childhood celebration. The informant does not practice any of the described activities nor celebrate the holiday as an adult with a family.
This story was shared during a family gathering as it related to another story told that specifically focused on the tradition of throwing bout-zons into a river after a person has died in those waters.
My Thoughts
This story highlights a lot of the attributes important to Taiwanese culture: Chiyan is loyal to his king, even when he is not heard. He cares for his people and works for their benefit. And he is honored after his death by the people that he served. He is not tempted away from his duty by the offer of a princess’ hand in marriage, but instead seeks knowledge and to do what is good for the people of his kingdom. This idea of self-sacrifice and the pursuit of knowledge is perpetuated in many Asian cultures even now. While Americans may find his death pointless, the intended audience of Taiwanese people see his death as a statement of his care for the kingdom and its people.
Scholar Huang Zheng wrote that the Dragon Boat Festival was to commemorate two individuals: Qu Yuan and Wu Zixu, and that the festival sought to exorcise evil. This version introduces another character and attempts to explain the dragon figureheads of the boats.
Zheng, Huang. “A Review and the Expectation of the Dragon Boat Festival Culture.” Journal of Hunan Agricultural University, 2010.

Eggs on Dragon Boat Festival

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 54
Occupation: /
Residence: Shanghai
Performance Date: Mar 23, 2019
Primary Language: Chinese

Context: The collector was interviewing the informant (as MD, the collector’s mother) for folklores. After she told the collector a folklore about eggs, the informant came up with another folklore about eggs. This is a custom the informant practiced in her childhood.

 

MD: When I was a kid, we (she and her peers) would have hard boiled eggs on Duanwu Festival (Dragon Boat Festival). We would weave nets to hang an egg on our neck. (Collector’s note: The nets were made of colored thick thread which was thinner thread intertwined together, according to a follow-up interview). Ah, that was really interesting. Every girl at that time could weave nets.

Collector: Is there something to do with good luck or stuff?

MD: I don’t know. We just followed what adults told us.

Collector: So what did the custom mean to you?

MD: That meant we could eat (eggs)! Those were eggs! It was just, like, whenever it was Duanwu, we could have eggs. (Collector’s note: eggs were not food that could be served every day for most ordinary Chinese families in the 1960s and 1970s.) After we hung the eggs in the day, we could eat them.

 

Collector’s thoughts:

Festivals are time to have foods that are not available all the time.

The interview also indicates the social environment and the financial status of ordinary families in 20th century China.

During the interview, the collector recalled a prose written by a Chinese writer, Zengqi Wang, that was exactly about eggs on Duanwu. Wang’s hometown is Gaoyou, a city in Jiangsu Province, which is also in the Yangtze River region like Shanghai. However, the eggs mentioned in that prose was duck eggs. See:

Wang, Zengqi. Shidouyinshuizhai Xianbi [食豆饮水斋闲笔，Literally: Journals from a studio of eating beans and drinking water], Huacheng Citry Press, ver.1, June 2015, pp 23-26.

(It is in Chinese)

Qu Yuan

Nationality: Taiwanese
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: February 12, 2017
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Sophie is an international student from Taiwan. She is pursuing a B.S. in Computer Science at the University of Southern California. She hopes to find a career in computer security and plans to stay in the United States, specifically Los Angeles, to work. She enjoys watching anime and learning; from USC-sponsored workshops, she has learned how to code and create chat bots.

Original Script

So, in ancient Chinese times, there’s this poet whose name is Qū Yuán. And he wrote these really great poems and he’s also this really successful government official but then the emperor died. The new emperor doesn’t like him, so the emperor banished Qū Yuán. And then he got to this river and he was really sad and he just wrote his last poem and then jumped into the river and died. But the people around that area were really sad because he was this really good government official and then they just threw all this zòngzi, which means “rice dumplings,” and threw them into the river so that the fish would just eat the rice dumplings and not Qū Yuán’s body so he doesn’t get eaten. So yeah, and uh, Duān Wǔ Jié, which is Mid-Summer Festival, we eat rice dumplings to remember this great poet.

Background Information about the Performance from the Informant

The informant hears this story every time she attends the Dragon Boat Festival near the summer solstice. At the festival, people re-enact the tragic life of the poet and minister, Qū Yuán, up to his death. It is a folk legend that the informant grew up hearing as a child, and it holds heavy historical importance to her.

Context of the Performance

I interviewed the informant in a study room at Parkside IRC.

Qū Yuán is a famed and respected Chinese poet and minister from the Warring States period of the Zhou Dynasty. Known for his contributions to classical poetry and verses, he served as a role model for scholars and officials during the Han Dynasty; the public admired him for staying true to his principles unto death. In certain regions of China and Taiwan, people commemorate the death of Qū Yuán in the Dragon Boat Festival. They believed that the locals rowed through the Miluo River on dragon boats to retrieve Qū Yuán and tossed zòngzi, or balls of sticky rice, into the river to save the poet’s body from being consumed by the fish.

My Thoughts about the Performance

While I have read about Qū Yuán in history books, I did not realize his legend was also considered the origins of dragon boat races and zòngzi. It was fascinating to hear about this famed historical figure, who is still celebrated today, and the legacy he left behind. I also find it interesting that he is commemorated only in certain parts of China during the Dragon Boat Festival. In other parts of China, such as southeast Jiangsu, people celebrate Wǔ Zǐxū at the festival; in northeastern Zhejiang, they celebrate Cao E.