June 23rd was a Chinese national holiday
called Dragon boat festival (Duan wu Jie). It was the fifth day of the
fifth lunar month. Chinese people celebrate this holiday by eating
Zongzi (rice wrapped in bamboo leaves) and watching
dragon boat races.
Here is a quotation from Wikipedia about this holiday. "The best-known traditional story holds that
the festival commemorates the death of poet Qu Yuan (c. 340-278 BCE) of
the ancient state of Chu during the Warring States Period of the Zhou
Dynasty. A descendant of the Chu royal house,
Qu served in high offices. However, when the king decided to ally with
the increasingly powerful state of Qin, Qu was banished for opposing the
alliance; he was accused of treason. During his exile, Qu Yuan wrote a
great deal of poetry, for which he is now
remembered. Twenty-eight years later, Qin captured Ying, the capital of
Chu. In despair, Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowning himself in the
Miluo River on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month.
It is said that the local people, who admired
him, dropped sticky rice triangles wrapped in bamboo leaves into the
river to feed the fish. The rice was wrapped so that fish would not
eat Qu Yuan's body and eat the rice instead.[6] This is said to be the
origin of zongzi. The local people were also said to have paddled out on
boats, either to scare the fish away or to
retrieve his body. This is said to be the origin of dragon boat
racing."
In Japan, we have similar celebration which is held on May fifth. This is called " Kodomono hi" (Children's
day). Although it doesn't have the same meaning as remembering Qu Yuan,
Japanese eat the same thing called "Chimaki" in Japanese to celebrate
all children's well being.
Among the Japanese expat wives, we made "Zongzi" together.This is how we made the Zongzi that day and the boiled bamboo leaves were in the center.
Inside the sticky rice is seasoned beef and nuts. The rice is wrapped in bamboo leaves like Origami.
The leaves are tied to the rice with cooking
thread. These are Zongzi! They can be boiled or steamed as they are
for thirty minutes.
