Suna in Wonderland

16^th of June, together with class mates we (Shanghai International foreign trade Institution)  participated ‘Dragon boat race competition’ held at Fengxian campus of East China Technology University.

We were told that only 19people can participate rowing the boat (1 drummer,18 rowers) and within 18 rower, only 6 female could participate. (NOT FAIR!!!) Anyway due to this regulation, competition among girls were tough, we came up with arm wrestling. 6 strong girls were selected and I automatically became cheering participant.

Why today is public holiday in China?

Duanwu Festival - 端午節, also known as Dragon Boat Festival celebrates every fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar. Korea also celebrates this date, originated from China but have different meaning and culture activities.

The original history of Duanwu Festival in China starts from suicidal of faithful governor officer, Qu Yuan, in the year of 278 B.C. (Detailed story here) Knowing the Qu is good man, people tried to rescue him searching by boat which now developed into racing dragon boats. This Dragon boat festival holiday is also registered in UNESCO’s global “Intangible Cultural Heritage” list.

Also during this day, people eat rice dumpling Zongzi. This has many different versions of stories, but what I heard from Chinese were, when Qu’s body was not found from the river, people started to throw this rice dumpling, hoping that fish will eat rice instead of body of the Qu. It is very interesting concept that Chinese believe fish would eat rice, just like they do.

Before the race begins, there was opening ceremony with dragon dancing show. Also one of top person colored every dragon’s eye in to red. (I wonder what it means)

Our School worked hard for the match, but other schools were even better. First 6 schools were give nice huge wooden boat trophy. (Turned out, every participated school received same boat trophy but little smaller- no favoritism in China)