Happy Dragon Boat Festival & New Layout

Today is DuanWu Jie (端午节), which also known as Dragon Boat Festival and the Double Fifth. It is a traditional holiday in China. The focus of the celebrations includes eating rice dumplings zongzi, drinking realgar wine XiongHuangJiu (雄黃酒), and racing dragon boats. 

zongzi (粽子)

There are a number of theories and folk histories behind this festival. I only want to share here the one, which I know since my childhood:

"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. 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."

Source: Wikipedia

Dragonboat Race

Other than that, I have decided to redesign my blog a little bit – incl. new background picture, a picture of me & designed my first “Grab My Button” Logo :) oh yeah – even though I still don’t know in which direction this blog will go… but I wanted to add more of a “personal touch” – it’s my blog after all :)

Lisa xoxo