Monday, June 6, 2011

Dragon Boat Festival

Today is the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, and thus, the Dragon Boat Festival. The picture is Zoe's and Maya's re-creation of a Dragon Boat race, with a drummer and just one rower since the boat is small!  The girls were motivated by today's lesson at the first day of Chinese language camp, which included lots of info on the Dragon Boat Festival.

A couple of links, if you're interested in learning more:

Origins of the Dragon Boat Festival, a Tragic Tale, exploring the various stories, including the most common one, about the death of the exiled poet Qu Yuan.

Enter the Dragons, an article at China Daily about how dragon boat racing has spread beyond China.

Making Zongzi, a photo tutorial and recipe for making the bamboo leaf-wrapped rice dumplings that it is said were thrown into the water to keep the fish from eating Qu Yuan's body.

Qu Yuan's famous poem, Li Sao (the Lament), translated into English.

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