Dragon Boat Festival

Apologies to any of you that have been hanging out for another post! We've been a little slack on the blog front lately, so there's a few things to catch up on.

Firstly, Simon has been quite sick over the past week. About a week ago he started complaining of sore throat and a fever. After a few days we realised that it was a little more serious than a cold, so we've since fed him a bunch of antibiotics and its done him a world of good! The difference has been a little startling, to be honest! This definitely confirms what we've heard so far about the quality of the health system here.

Also, we've had much more time for R and R than usual, being a long weekend here in Taipei. (We've also got tommorrow off, hooray!) This is because the Taiwanese are celebrating 'Dragon Boat Festival' ((端午節, Duānwū Jié). It's a traditional festival held on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month and its said that once the festival begins, so too does summer.

The exact origins of Duan Wu are unclear, but one traditional view holds that the festival memorializes the Chinese poet Chu Yuan (c. 340 BC-278 BC). He committed suicide by drowning himself in a river because he was disgusted by the corruption of the government. (One of our good friends shares in his ancestry!)

The local people, knowing him to be a good man, decided to throw food into the river to feed the fish so they would not eat Qu Yuan's body. They also sat on long, narrow paddle boats called 'dragon boats', and tried to scare the fish away by the thundering sound of drums aboard the boat and the fierce looking carved dragon head on the head of the boat. Other thoughts are that after Qu Yaun committed suicide, that because the people loved him so much, they raced out to recover his body, and the races signify the boats skimming across the water to find him.

However, researches have also revealed that the festival is also a celebration that is characteristic of ancient Chinese agrarian society: the celebration of the harvest of winter wheat, because similar celebrations had long existed in many other parts of China where Qu Yuan was not known. As interactions between Chinese residing in different regions increased, these similar festivals were eventually merged.

In the early years of the Chinese Republic, Duan Wu was also celebrated as "Poets' Day," due to Qu Yuan's status as China's first poet of personal renown. Today, people eat bamboo-wrapped steamed rice dumplings called zongzi (the food originally intended to feed the fish) and race dragon boats in memory of Qu Yuan's death. (Delicious!)

So our celebration of Dragon Boat Festival was shared today with some of our fantastic Taiwanese friends, Margaret and Leo. Being life-long Taipeiers, they offered to take us to Jilong River (on the city's outskirts) to see the famous Dragon Boat races. It was fantastic! Lots of teams competed, including local high schools and the Taipei Police. The event had the air of a high school sports day, with lots of people running around and lots of eskies filled with ice-creams and watermelons to combat the heat. I guess the photos really say it all.

From there Margaret and Leo took us for a tour of the area surrounding National Taiwan Normal University ('Shi-da' for short) where we'll be learning Chinese in a few months. Being a student area, it has a really different vibe to other parts of Taipei - heaps of well-priced food (especially Malaysian and Indonesian to cater to the international student community) and funky little stores, just gorgeous. It's definitely the place for us. So we had a lazy afternoon lunch over noodles (also v. delicious!) So we'll be back there over the week or so to look for houses with those guys, which will be great.

So that's the update for the moment. Simon's having a peaceful nana nap beside me, as he's pretty zonked from his first day out and about since he got sick. When he wakes up, it'll be time for some more West Wing (there's a few duds in season six, I must say... not cool!) and perhaps some online Lateline too!