[Asia culture] Dragon Boat festival in Taiwan
Today is our Dragon boat festival in Taiwan!! Have you eaten rice dumpling yet🤭
I found this surprising myself, not only us ethnic Chinese celebrate this day, but in Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Vietnam they celebrate the dragon boat festival also!!
Let me tell you how we celebrate in Taiwan👇🏻👇🏻
When is Dragon Boat Festival
The dragon boat festival is dated on the 5th of May in our Lunar calendar.
The dragon boat festival in 2023 is on the 22nd of June
What we do on the Dragon boat festival in Taiwan
During the dragon boat festival period, we eat a LOTTTT of rice dumplings. Kids will wear fragrant sachets (👈🏻click to see) with different herbs/ Chinese medicines inside, which are believed to keep bacteria/viruses away (if it would work for COVID…💁🏻♀️), and keeping mosquitos away is another plus😂.
And of course, what is a dragon boat festival without dragon boats!! They will have competitions on rivers.
Rice dumplings
We will be stuffed with rice dumplings EVERY MEAL during this period of the year!! Meanwhile, the north and the south of Taiwan are always competing with each other, whose rice dumpling tastes the best.👆🏻We have both sweet and salty types of rice dumplings, this is how sweet one looks
During the dragon boat festival period, every year my mom will arrive home one day with a big bundle of ropes and leaves to make rice dumplings. Trust me, those Asian mommies have those tips and tricks for making these dumplings, I tried and it wasn’t that easy. They have to be tied Perfect👌🏻. The rice that will be used is sticky rice and the best rice dumplings for me are those that don’t stick on the leaves after steaming, if you’ve tried them before, you know what I mean🤦♀️
| Here are some cooking class in Taipei that you might be interested Option A – Authentic Taiwanese Cooking Class Option B – Taiwan Traditional Cuisine Handmade Course |
Dragon Boat Festival story
There are many tales out there about how the dragon boat festival originated, but the story which I have heard since little was:
There was this guy called Qu Yuan, one of the most famous Chinese patriotic poets whom all students “loved” so much since we were memorizing his poems for half of our student life…
Anyway, the ministers at that time were jealous of him and started to talk behind his back, and finally, the Emporer exiled him.
Thanks to the emperor, that was how Qu yuan started to compose those touching poems, and after being exiled for years he was too desperate for the country and he drowned himself in the Miluo River.
When people knew about this, they sailed on the river throwing rice dumplings in the river for the fishes not to eat his corpse.
No matter which tale of the dragon boat festival you’ve heard, this must be the most touching one, isn’t it!
You migh be interested: How we celebrate Chinese New Year in Taiwan Lantern Festival in Taiwan Moon festival in Taiwan Gift giving Taboos in Chinese culture
📌Last but not least, I hope you enjoyed this post, and also remember not to eat the Leaves of the dumplings..🙇🏻♀️🙇🏻♀️🙇🏻♀️
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