Post by Isaac Ho, the Admin on Jun 18, 2016 15:06:23 GMT -5
LEGEND OF THE CHINESE DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL
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by Isaac Ho, the Admin & Founder of this Forum
Dear friends and visitors to my forum, the month of June is usually celebrated in mainland China and overseas wherever the fellow
Chinese people settle down for its profound significance - the love and patriotism to one's country!!!
Particularly in Malaysia where I once live, I remember my late mother, Mrs. Ho Loke Yin Heng, (1920-20130) would be busy the last week of June each year when she was alive
to prepare Jong - Chinese glutinous rice dumplings stuffed each with a piece of aromatic fat pork, salty duck yoke and the soft green bean
paste and then the entire content wrapped with bamboo leaves which came from Canton (KongTong Province), southern China.
As my Dear late mum cooked the Jong dumplings in a large container with slow fire wood in the kitchen of Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown,
Petaling Street, these tasty pastry would be ready in just about 3 hours.
My mum would then give us - the six children - the cooked Jong - that we could take to school and eat them during the school
lunch period - 10.00 a.m.
On returning home for lunch (after 1:00 p.m.), our family, like all Chinese families in Malaysia would eat more traditional Jong
Dumplings together with tenderly steamed chicken which mum carefully chopped it up upon a wooden block in the kitchen.
She would then tell us, the youngsters, the story of how the Chinese people came to celebrating this year festival in the Chinese
fifth month.
The Jong Rice Dumplings were first made during the Warring States Period (340-278 B.C.) by the local country folks in ancient
China for the fish in the river instead of the famous Chinese poet and statesman, Qu Yuan or Wat Yuen (Cantonese). He was then
the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Chu as well as a brilliant military strategist to advise the Emperor of Chu and thereby making
his kingdom stronger in order to successfully contend with six other mini kingdoms in China then (i.e. Qi, Yan, Han, Zhao,
Wei and Qin). In spite of Wat Yuen or Qu Yuan support for the Chu Emperor, the jealous officials slandered and accused him of
falsehood in treason. Hence, Wat Yuen was dismissed from office and exiled by the ignorant King of Chu.
However, Minister Wat Yuen wrote a great deal and expressing himself sadly in poems of his deep patriotism and love for
his country - China and the Kingdom of Chu in particular.
Unfortunately, in 278 B.C., the Kingdom of Qin became strong enough to conquer the Kingdom of Chu - his army successfully
captured the capital city of Chu and made the emperor a prisoner, many people became slaves and their properties looted.
Upon hearing this sad news about the lost of his kingdom in which its ignorant emperor exiled him, Wat Yuen in a state of great
sorrow and despair committed suicide by throwing himself bodily into the Miluo River on the 5th day of fifth month of the Chinese
Year.
When the people heard of the death and the sacrifice of the Minister Wat Yuen, they began to assembled and row out in their boats
to search for his body upon the waters of River Miluo. Unable to locate the whereabout of Wat Yuen's body, the desperate people
in their wooden boats rowed up and down the river, hitting the water with their wooden oars in the accompaniment of drums to
scare the demons and the hungry fishes. They then tossed lumps of sticky rice into the River Miluo in order to trick the
fishes to eat the rice rather than Wat's body.
Further more, an old Chinese doctor even poured wine into the waters of swift River Miluo to poison the school of fishes and the
demons thereby protecting the body of Minister Wat Yuen.
From that day onwards the people of River Miluo which is situated 50 km north of Changsha city in the central province of
China, that is Hunan, remembered Wat Yuen and commemorate his extreme sacrifice to save the Kingdom of Chu by preparing
Jong dumplings and rowing boats to throw some of the cooked foodstuff into the rivers... and the wooden boats would gradually
as the years went by into dragon boats for auspiciousness in respect of the stature of Minister Wat Yuen and the meaning of love
of the country - CHINA.
Hence, an important lesson is learned in this legend to celebrate the selflessness of Minister Wat Yuen every year in the fifth
moon or the equivalent of June in the Western Calendar.
People of Canada and all over the world ought to participate to remember the meaning of principle sacrifice to save a nation,
and what better example than that of the ancient Chinese Minister Wat Yuen (or Qu Yuan in Mandarin).