The Chinese Dragon Boat Festival Underway

It is believed that a Dragon Boat Festival originated from a fable of a genocide of a producer and politician Qu Yuan, who drowned himself in a Mi Lo River in 278 BC.

No one seems to know since Qu killed himself, some trust it was since he despaired over a state of politics in his homeland. Others trust that it was since he believed it was a approach for him to keep his ignorance intact.

The reasons for Qu’s genocide aside, a fable states that a internal people got into their boats to collect Qu’s body. Those who were not in boats threw dumplings into a H2O and kick drums to keep a fish divided from his remains.

This is since a jubilee includes vessel racing and eating zongzi (rice) dumplings.

The Dragon Boat Festival is distinguished in China on a fifth day of a fifth month in a lunar Chinese calendar. Because of this, a tradition in Guangdong and Hong Kong is to eat food compared with a series five, such as a rice plate congee, done with 5 opposite forms of beans.

The Shanghai Zoo served special zongzi to a animal inhabitants on Thursday, Jun 25, 2020, in jubilee of a Dragon Boat Festival.

Zongzi are normal festival food done of “glutinous rice pressed with opposite fillings and wrapped in leaves.” The zoo’s zongzi were prepared with a animal’s dietary needs in mind. For example, Meerkats and fennec foxes perceived zongzi pressed with dog food and mealworms. They were fast eaten.

Galapagos tortoises ate zongzi wrapped with plantain root veins and bamboo leaves. Yellow-margined box turtles had shrimp zongzi.

Otters, once inland to Shanghai and East China, ate fish-filled zongzi and badgers had them filled with vegetables.

At a Shanghai Wild Animal Park in a Pudong New Area, animals enjoyed a party of zongzi.

African elephants eat zongzi filled with watermelon, wrapped by plantain leaves. Pandas ate a apple, banana, and raisin-filled zongzi.

Animal keepers during a furious animal park fed a raccoons zongzi filled with peanuts, red dates, and biscuits to applaud a Dragon Boat Festival.

By Jeanette Vietti

Sources:

Metro: What is a Dragon Boat Festival and what food do people eat to applaud a day?
Shine: Zoo critters suffer festival feast zongzi
CGTN: Panda gets special feast for Duanwu Festival in SW China

Featured Image Courtesy of David Yu’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Top Image Courtesy of Ken McVay’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License

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