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  • Coco and John, do you know why we  wrap Zongzi(rice dumpling) now

  • I know, it's to celebrate  the Dragon Boat Festival

  • Correct, do you know why we eat  Zongzi for the Dragon Boat Festival?  

  • How did the Dragon Boat Festival come about?

  • There are lots of stories and legends about it.

  • Today, I'll tell you the most famous one.

  • Long Long time ago, there was a famous patriotic poet Qu Yuan.

  • He was born into the nobility of Chu  State during the Warring States Period.

  • Qu Yuan dedicated his whole life

  • to assisting the King to make the Chu stronger,

  • so he became the NO.1 minister of Chu  at that time.

  • One of his key ideas was to unite the equally powerful Qi State

  • to resist the most powerful Qin at the time.

  • However, as a group of nobles were very jealous of Qu Yuan,

  • they often spoke ill of him in front of the King.

  • Finally, Qu Yuan was driven out  of the capital and exiled to remote areas.

  • During his exile, he wrote a lot of poems  to show his love towards his country,  

  • some of which are still very famous in China.

  • In 278 B.C., the capital of Chu  was broken through by the Qin army.  

  • After hearing it, Qu Yuan was very sad and angry.

  • On the 5th day of the 5th lunar month,

  • he threw himself into the Miluo  River and died for his country.

  • After hearing the sad news,

  • the people  of Chu mourned and went to the Miluo River.

  • Fishermen rowed their boats and tried to salvage his body from the river.

  • They threw rice balls, eggs, and  other food into the river,

  • hoping that the fish, shrimps, and crabs would eat the food

  • and wouldn't bite Qu Yuan's body.

  • An old physician poured a jar of realgar wine into the river to stun the dragon.

  • But unfortunately, people  did not find Qu Yuan's body.

  • To send their condolences, people  swung their boats above the river.  

  • Later it developed into dragon boat racing.

  • People came up with the idea of wrapping rice with bamboo leaves

  • and tying them up with colored thread,

  • which later developed into zongzi.

  • On the 5th day of the 5th  the lunar month of each year,  

  • there is the custom of dragon boat  racing, eating zongzi

  • and drinking regular wine.

  • People do these activities  to commemorate the patriotic poet Qu Yuan.

  • Want to know more about other fun stories about

  • Chinese festivals and culture?

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  • See u then, byebye~

Coco and John, do you know why we  wrap Zongzi(rice dumpling) now

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