Dumpling Festival, a Korean traditional festival… Huh!??
When I was reading the online newspaper this afternoon on a super mini size window, a news caught my attention. Dumpling Festival has been officially declared as a traditional festival of the KOREANS by the UN. Huh!!???????? Reading through the article carefully, the Koreans had sneakily and cunningly applied Dumpling Festival under the Human Cultural Heritage section and the proposal was amazingly approved… Unbelievable! I wondered which birdbrains in the UN processed the applications.
Dumpling Festival or Duan Wu Jie in mandarin is a day for commemorating Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet who died during the period of Warring States. He served as an official in the Chu, but was later being framed and banished from the court due to jealousy against his talent and ability. For the coming 20 years, he travelled across states as a poet and wrote many famous poems reflecting his thought and the things he had seen. Later then, he witnessed how Chu was conquered by Qin. Things that were once there were no more and every thing had become so unfamiliar. He was depressed, disheartened and overwhelmed by misery. Qu Yuan clasped a huge stone against his chest and plunged into Mi Luo River, which located in current Hunan Province. When the tragedy reached the local fishermen, they set sail to search for his body. However, it was nowhere to be found and they threw rice into the river. Hoping and prayed that the fishes will not feed on his body. That night, all the fishermen had the same dream that their prayer had been heard. The fishes had eaten the rice and left Qu Yuan untouched. On the following day, the fishermen returned to the river and threw rice stuffed in bamboo leaves into the river to express their gratitude. These later evolved to the Dumpling Festival the Chinese celebrate today, with various dumplings and dragonboat competition. For more than 20 centuries, the Chinese has celebrated the festival on the fifth day of the fifth lunar year.
I cannot remember when and how many times that the story was repeated and now when something new… It is the Korean’s… Reading the next paragraph, the news continued… Apparantly, the Japanese did something similar. They applied Kimchi under the same section behind the back of the Koreans and got approved. Anyone who knows a little bit about Korean culture would understand the pain they suffered, as Kimchi is just like another name for Korean. Having such crude and hard experience, the Koreans took the same approach, like the Japanese.
Although it is a huge disappointment that it ended up this way, to many Chinese, Dumpling Festival will always still be a Chinese traditional festival regardless of the record of UN and this is not going to spoil my festive mood. Five minutes from now, I will be leaving work. Chinese dumpling awaits me at Restaurant Asia~~~
Happy Duan Wu Jie!!!!
When I was reading the online newspaper this afternoon on a super mini size window, a news caught my attention. Dumpling Festival has been officially declared as a traditional festival of the KOREANS by the UN. Huh!!???????? Reading through the article carefully, the Koreans had sneakily and cunningly applied Dumpling Festival under the Human Cultural Heritage section and the proposal was amazingly approved… Unbelievable! I wondered which birdbrains in the UN processed the applications.
Dumpling Festival or Duan Wu Jie in mandarin is a day for commemorating Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet who died during the period of Warring States. He served as an official in the Chu, but was later being framed and banished from the court due to jealousy against his talent and ability. For the coming 20 years, he travelled across states as a poet and wrote many famous poems reflecting his thought and the things he had seen. Later then, he witnessed how Chu was conquered by Qin. Things that were once there were no more and every thing had become so unfamiliar. He was depressed, disheartened and overwhelmed by misery. Qu Yuan clasped a huge stone against his chest and plunged into Mi Luo River, which located in current Hunan Province. When the tragedy reached the local fishermen, they set sail to search for his body. However, it was nowhere to be found and they threw rice into the river. Hoping and prayed that the fishes will not feed on his body. That night, all the fishermen had the same dream that their prayer had been heard. The fishes had eaten the rice and left Qu Yuan untouched. On the following day, the fishermen returned to the river and threw rice stuffed in bamboo leaves into the river to express their gratitude. These later evolved to the Dumpling Festival the Chinese celebrate today, with various dumplings and dragonboat competition. For more than 20 centuries, the Chinese has celebrated the festival on the fifth day of the fifth lunar year.
I cannot remember when and how many times that the story was repeated and now when something new… It is the Korean’s… Reading the next paragraph, the news continued… Apparantly, the Japanese did something similar. They applied Kimchi under the same section behind the back of the Koreans and got approved. Anyone who knows a little bit about Korean culture would understand the pain they suffered, as Kimchi is just like another name for Korean. Having such crude and hard experience, the Koreans took the same approach, like the Japanese.
Although it is a huge disappointment that it ended up this way, to many Chinese, Dumpling Festival will always still be a Chinese traditional festival regardless of the record of UN and this is not going to spoil my festive mood. Five minutes from now, I will be leaving work. Chinese dumpling awaits me at Restaurant Asia~~~
Happy Duan Wu Jie!!!!
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