Dragon Boat Festival

Dragon Boat Festival is held in June. It is a strange holiday. It can be fun because there are usually boat races and they are fun to watch. Like most holidays, there is a special food. Zongzi is a sticky rice that is wrapped in bamboo leaves. The rice is often mixed with different things like meat or sometimes fruit or nuts. Zongzi has a triangular shape. Jon really likes this food, but it is not my favorite. You can find zongsi all year round, but it is even more popular near Dragon Boat Festival.

Dragon Boat Festival, also called Duan Wu remembers a great poet and scholar called Qu Yuan. When he was 37, he drowned himself in a river. The local people searched and searched for him in their boats (that's where the boats come in). Then (according to some legends) the people were afraid that the fish would eat Qu Yuan's body so they threw zongsi in the river to feed the fish so they would not eat his body. I told you it was a strange holiday.

There is a river that runs right in front of our apartment complex, so we went out to watch some of the boats.



See the dragon on the front of the boat?










After the "race" this guy was hot so he decided to take a dip to cool off. I don't think I would have jumped in that water!




They let this little guy have a try. Look at that grin!!