Jenny Lao-Phillips
Tomorrow we enjoy another public holiday, the Tuen Ng Festival 端午節 or, as it is more widely known, the Dragon Boat Festival. Although it is one of the three most important festivals in the Chinese culture, together with the Spring Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival, Tuen Ng has been less celebrated at the family level. The Chinese tradition is big on family gatherings during both the Spring and the Autumn Festivals, but why not this summer festival? Well, basically, Tuen Ng is not a time for celebration. It is actually a day of death and poisons.
For those who know the traditions of the Tuen Ng Festival, you would be aware of the stories of death related to this day. The most popular story is about the famous poet and patriarch, Qu Yuan 屈原, a government official who was sent into exile for opposing a bad decision made by the king. Years later, when that decision led to the destruction of the empire, Qu Yuan threw himself into the river as a final act of patriotism, to die with his country. From this story came the two most popular traditions of Tuen Ng, the dragon boat and the “zongzi 粽子” – sticky rice dumplings.
It has been popular belief that after Qu Yuan jumped into the river, many people who admired his loyalty rowed their boats down the river to find his corpse. One story I heard was that they put dragon-like decorations on their boats to scare away fish and prawns so they would not consume Qu Yuan’s body. They also dumped sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves into the river to over-feed the fish and prawns. So, to commemorate the day of Qu Yuan’s death, every year people row dragon boats and make zongzi. But one thing we have forgotten is that aside from his patriotic act of suicide by drowning, Qu Yuan is also remembered for the many poems he wrote during his exile expressing his love and concern for his country. As a result, the Dragon Boat Festival has also been known as the Poet Festival. Perhaps writing or reciting patriotic poems is not as interesting as racing dragon boats, so this part of the tradition did not get passed down to the modern days.
Another less known story of the root of the Tuen Ng Festival dates way before the time of Qu Yuan. It was believed that, as the fifth month of the lunar year is the transition from spring to summer, the five most poisonous creatures in the Chinese culture, “snake, scorpion, centipede, toad and spider,” would come out and spread poisons causing illness. Therefore, ancient people called the fifth month, the “Bad Month” or “Poisonous Month”, and the fifth day of the month was believed to be the worst, so the Dragon Boat Festival had once been called the “Five Poison Festival 五毒節”. In some places, people still practice 驅五毒 (driving away the five poisons) on Tuen Ng by drinking realgar wine 雄黃酒.
So, although Tuen Ng is not a day for big family celebrations, there are still a lot of festive things we can do by ourselves. While not all of us can participate in rowing a dragon boat, any one of us can go about exploring the increasing variety of sticky rice dumplings. Lately, I’ve even seen a restaurant selling Spanish Zongzi, but the Spanish version of the Tuen Ng Festival is still to be explored. For those who are not into sticky rice, we can always drink realgar wine and read some patriotic poems, probably even on a boat, for a quieter passing of the holiday.
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