"Bah Zhang"* time

* It's Dumpling Festival....

The annual "five-month, five-day" Dumpling Festival (colloquial for the fifth day of the fifth lunar month) is back.

In Singapore as with many countries with Chinese communities worldwise, this traditional Chinese festival is celebrated by the eating of a variety of steamed glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves.

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The Story

For the uninitiated, Dumpling Festival (Duan Wu Jie) is also known as Dragon Boat Festival. It is celebrated in rememberance of Chinese poet Qu Yuan, who was a loyal official in the court of the Chu Kingdom in old China. Jealous of him, the other court officials schemed to frame him by telling lies about him in front of the fatuous emporor, resulting in Qu Yuan being banished from the court.

Over the next 20 years, the Chu kingdom got weaker and feeling sad that his beloved country was controlled by another country, Qu Yuan decided to end his life by jumping into the river.

Fishermen who heard that Qu Yuan drowned himself in the river set sail on boats to look for his body When they could not find it, they threw rice wrapped in bamboo leaves into the river so that the fish in the river would eat the rice instead of his body.

Thus began the tradition of dragon boat races (creating a din to scare away the preying fish?) and eating rice dumplings on Duan Wu Jie.

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Now... ladies, time to put aside your low-fat diet, 5-grain rice meal, or water diet. Go ahead, indulge yourself in this heavenly delight & immerse your lipstick lips in the juicy & oily fat-ladden glutinous rice dumplings..