The Dragon Boat Festival is one of the most colorful traditional holidays in China. Falling on June 12 this year, it was celebrated with various folk activities to wish for good health and long life.
The four-day Chongming Dragon Boat Festival, held in five villages in Chongming County, attracted 19 exchange students from Shanghai Tongji University.
Having studied Chinese culture for some years, they were enthusiastic about taking part in the festival's activities, which included making zongzi (dumplings of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves), making and hanging scent sachets, drinking xionghuang jiu (realgar wine), flying dragon-shaped kites, watching dragon dance contests and going fishing with nets in a pond.
The event, featuring history, culture, ecology and health, was held in Yingzhou Village, Mingzhu Lake, Qianwei Village, Sanmin Culture Village, Gaojia Manor and Sanming Culture Village.
The Dragon Boat Festival is believed to stem from ancient dragon worship. Chongming County, at the month of the Yangtze River, is an island compared to "a pearl in the mouth of a dragon." Yingdong Village, at the east of the island, gets the first rays of sun in Chongming.
As the center of the event, Yingdong Village has grown from a remote town to one based on environmentally friendly concepts. It is famous for coordinating agriculture and tourism.
The rain did not dampen the students' enthusiasm at the opening ceremony. It began with a sacrificial ceremony to commemorate the suicide of exiled statesman and patriotic poet Qu Yuan (340-278 BC).
Qu had warned the Chu King about the expansionist Qin Kingdom, but his warnings were unheeded and he was exiled as a traitor. When the Chu Kingdom fell, the story goes that Qu drowned himself in the Miluo River.
It is said that townspeople threw rice in the water so fish wouldn't eat his body before they retrieved it.
"This is my first Dragon Boat Festival. The sacrificial ceremony and dancers in traditional dress relive the scene of the time," said Dennis Gehl, an exchange student from Germany studying business at Tongji University.
"In the ceremony I liked the children's folk song 'Reed Leaf Song,' featuring Chongming dialect. The folk songs have a history of more than 1,300 years and were passed down orally through generations," says a teacher surnamed Shi teaching language and culture at Tongji University.
Most of the songs are about farming life. However, fewer and few children speak Chongming dialect nowadays. The event raises awareness of the mother tongue.
The festival also features various activities. The traditional festival food is zongzi, a pyramid-shaped dumpling made of glutinous rice, stuffed with fatty pork, sweet red beans, lotus roots and other ingredients. It is wrapped in reed leaves and tied with string.
Chongming zongzi is famous for its precise angles and perfect pyramid shape. In Chongming there's a strong family tradition of making zongzi at home.
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