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Thursday, May 28, 2009 was Dragon Boat Festival, or Duan Wu Jie, one of thre three biggest holidays celebrated in China. It falls on the 5th day of the 5th month on the lunar calendar and is therefore also sometimes called the Double Fifth Festival. This festival is actually celebrated to mourn for a man who died more than 2000 years ago (278BC)! He was Qu Yuan, a poet, writer, a patriotic officer who challenged corruption, and was very popular with the common people. When the Dynasty he served was defeated, he committed suicide by drowning himself in the river. Supposedly, the people hurried out on the river in their boats, beating drums to scare away the fish and feeding Zong zi to those that wouldn't be scared away so that they wouldn't eat Qu Yuan's body.
Today, people celebrate with dragon boat races, beating drums in the boats, and by eating zong zi. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see any races, but we did eat some zong zi! Zong zi is sticky rice with some type of filling, shaped in sort of a pyramid and wrapped in either bamboo or corn leaves or reeds. We had bought some at the store which I think had the red bean filling and were somewhat sweet. Ace also gave us two kinds, one also was sweet , the other was meat filled, but we weren't crazy about it.
Leah and I researched the Dragon Boat Festival and I gave her the choice of a project to make, so she designed a dragon mask for her Littlest Pet Shop kitty! She did a great job!

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