Dragon Boat Day!!!

From Taiwan Pics

From Taiwan Pics

From Taiwan Pics

From Taiwan Pics

From Taiwan Pics

A couple weeks ago, we got a day off of work for Dragon Boat Day. This is one of the major holidays of the year in Taiwan, and we were excited to see the festivities and the dragon boat races down by the river. Dragon Boat Day has been celebrated in Taiwan for many years and is based on an old story about a poet in the time of Confucious.

A long time ago, there was a man named Qu Yuan. He was extremely wise and always gave advice to King of Chu during the Warring States Period in the third century BCE. After a while, the king and his courts got tired of Qu Yuan and his advice and started telling him no. Qu Yuan was frustrated that the king did not listen after writing some passionately angry poetry, he threw himself into the river and sank to the bottom. As the story goes, his followers tried to find him in boats and threw rice cakes overboard to get the fish to eat the rice instead of Qu Yuan.

And now today, people all over Southeast Asia celebrate Qu Yuan by racing boats decorated like dragons, and eating a traditional rice triangle filled with meat. (see photo).

When we went, the day was stifling hot and humid and we were only able to stay a couple hours because I thought I was going to pass out. It was so fun to watch the crowd cheer for their favorite rowing teams. My favorite moment was when we walked by a testosterone-filled bunch of guys that were fresh out of the water in their little swimsuits, and they were very excited to see us Americans, so I took a photo and for some reason they seemed to really enjoy that.

The boats would race 3 at a time, with about 20 people in each boat. There would be a special drum beater person to keep all the rowers in time with each other, and a front small person who's one role was to grab the flag at the finish line to stop the clock and hopefully help his or her team win.

Our buddy Michael, who's been helping us understand the culture and language bought us some traditional rice triangles at the market and then told us that on that day, the moon was in the perfect position to make an egg balance on its own. But we didn't really believe him because sometimes I think he just makes up traditions, and the egg trick didn't quite work out.

Dragon Boat Day=Awesome! And I was so glad to have an umbrella for protection agains the hot hot sun. Umbrellas are seriously the most used accessory here.