June is the month of Awareness for so many meaningful and inclusive celebrations, such as pride month and indigenous history month. However, Dragon Boat Festival, also known as the Duanwu Festival (端午節), is happening this month as well. It is one of the most important celebrations in Chinese culture, which commemorates the great poet Qu Yuan and is celebrated by holding dragon boat races and eating sticky rice dumplings called Zongzi.
To many children in the program, Duanwu Festival was something new. Educator Jingfeng started with books talking about the history and traditions behind the festival. The children brought many interesting questions, such as, “Who’s Qu Yuan?” “Why did he throw himself into the river?” “Why did they throw Zongzi into the river not other food?” For some of the questions, it was hard for them to fully understand since the history and the feelings of the historical people were complicated. They had to hold the curiosity inside and hopefully one day these seeds would sprout as they grow.
Besides the history, what the children were mostly interested in was the part about the transitional food, Zongzi. A lot of them were surprised by the materials used for Zongzi, which is wrapped by leaves, while some shared their experiences with Zongzi proudly to the group. Jingfeng brought in Zongzi and two children happened to have dumpling squishies, which were in the shape of Baozi (a Steaming Dumpling), so we compared the steaming dumplings and the sticky rice dumplings to find the differences and similarities.
Unfortunately, the children could only study the Zongzi and not taste it; a lot of the children expressed how disappointed they were. In response, Jingfeng encouraged them to draw or colour the food, or use a special colouring sheet of two Zongzi figures rowing on a dragon boat. Some of them also checked the illustrations in the books to learn what the common colours were on the boats.
Lila decided to draw her own Zongzi and left a message to express her feelings on not getting to taste a Zongzi. She wrote: “Love it, even though I didn’t eat it.” Jingfeng then shared with families where they could buy Zongzi, in case they wanted to try it. Lila's family shared that there’s similar food in their culture, forming a new appreciation towards this cultural awareness.
