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Rice Dumpling Festival aka Dragon Boat Festival
You know, we Chinese in Singapore eat rice dumplings, glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves, during Duan Wu Jie (Rice Dumpling Festival aka Dragon Boat Festival), to commemorate the death of a patriotic official, Qu Yuan. According to ancient legend, Qu Yuan was a loyal court official in the court of the Chu Kingdom in old China, he was extremely capable and many of the other court officials were jealous of him, they plotted against him and he was dismissed from court. Over the next 20 years, the Chu kingdom got weaker, he was very sad that his beloved country was invaded by another country, the Qin Kingdom and that the people were suffering a lot of hardships. Feeling depressed that his country had come to such a state of destruction, the wise (in these modern age, suicide is not wise at all!) and honest Qu Yuan threw himself into the Mi Luo River and drowned in protest against corruption and injustice. Qu Yuan was greatly respected by the people because of his love for his country and its people. When they learnt of his death, they set out boats to look for his body. the fishermen furiously beat drums, gongs and cymbals in their desperate attempt to scare away the fishes. They beat the waters furiously with their paddles and threw rice wrapped in bamboo leaves (rice dumplings) into the river for the fishes and other sea creatures to feed on instead of devouring their hero's body. Thus the Pyramid shaped dumplings made of glutinous rice known as Rice Dumplings are eaten to mark the festival and the legend of local fishermen racing out to save Qu Yuan is re-enacted in the form of existing Dragon boat Races along the rivers and coasts. Actually, I’m not sure if those fishermen had thrown in square/round/pyramid shaped rice dumplings, but we are celebrating with the pyramid-shaped rice dumplings traditionally. Parcel-shaped glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaves are so available at the shops, and they are delicious too! In Singapore, we also call the pyramid-shaped dumplings “ba chang” (meat dumplings in Hokkien dialect) as rice dumpling with meat fillings are common. You know, it is believed that purely rice dumplings were thrown into the river to distract the fish from devouring Qu Yuan’s body. Why it is that meat dumpling are so common for this festival? Suddenly, it hit upon me that the fish ate both meat and rice. If you are a fish, and meat and rice fell into the water, you would surely eat both, right? Man, anyone knows that meat and rice go so well together. Therefore, we Chinese in Singapore eat our delicious dumplings with so many types of flavoured meat. There is sweet, salted and whatnot. Yum yum!
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May, 2012
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