Rice Dumpling Festival

My fav festival after chinese new year is the rice dumpling festival..i love d sticky glutinous rice minus d groundnuts (i actually pick them out!) Once i even had 5 bakchang one-shot..keng mou? But after that i felt like puking..LOL!

So we all love bakchang...but do you guys know the story behind this festival? I bet not! Me too..LOL!

So i did some google-ing and found this:

Duan Wu Jie is a widely celebrated festival amongst the Chinese, to pay respect to the patriotic poet, Qu Yuan (pronounced as Chue Yuan). The legend involves a really long and complicated throne-fighting war and political history. But to make a long story short: Qu Yuan was an important minister back in Chu Kingdom in ancient China. He had been known for his loyalty for the emperor of Chu, and loved his country greatly. However, His Majesty had not taken Qu Yuan's advice seriously, and he eventually got himself trapped and captured in a foreign land by his enemies, which then lead to his own death. Sad and angry at the corrupted, dying Kingdom, Qu Yuan tied himself to a big rock and threw himself into the River of Puo Luo. The people then made rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves and threw them into the river. They believed this would stop the fish from eating Qu Yuan's body. Some would even row down stream in a boat, beating drums and shouting out loud in the hope to scare the fish away (it was believed that it is how the Dragon Boat event is related to the festival.
Since then, the 5th day of the 5th month in the Chinese calendar has been set as Duan Wu Festival to remember the incident. Although there were versions of legends and stories that indicate Duan Wu has existed way before Qu Yuan's death, the tradition still carries on.

I think there are quite a number of stories regarding this rice dumpling festival..because i recall one about smuggling secret messages in the rice dumplings...not too sure! i had bakchang this morning and later will have kichang..d small yellow ones. I used to eat it warm wit sugar (mum taught me) until someone taught me to eat it cold with gula melaka..super yummy..thank you that someone even though i kenot remember who ade..LOL! My mum used to even eat d bakchang with sugar..she told me my late-grandma taught her that *shake head* weird! Now she eats it with chilli sauce..........ermm...still weird!

ok..that's all for now!