The Dragon Boat Festival will be organized at Jarun Lake by the Confucius Institute of the University of Zagreb.
The Tuen Ng or Duanwu Festival, also often known in the West as the Dragon Boat Festival is a traditional holiday originating in China, occurring near the summer solstice.
The festival will take place on May 30 this year, and it will be celebrated on June 3 in Zagreb, zagreb.info reports. This folk festival has been celebrated for over 2,000 years, when Chinese people practice various customs thought to dispel disease, and invoke good health. Some of the most traditional ones include dragon boat racing, eating sticky rice dumplings (zongzi), hanging Chinese mugwort and calumus, drinking realgar wine, and wearing perfume pouches.
The Dragon Boat Festival race, organized by the Confucius Institute of the University of Zagreb, will take place at Jarun Lake at 10 a.m. The racing track for adults will be 500 m long and for children 250 m. In addition to the boat race, there will also be kite making, papercut and Chinese calligraphy workshops and board game lovers will have a chance to learn weiqi, the oldest board game in the world. Each visitor will get their name written in Chinese and have a chance to win prizes.
The origin of the festival
The most popular legend holds that the festival commemorates the death of the poet and minister Qu Yuan (c. 340–278 BC) of the ancient state of Chu. When the king decided to ally with the increasingly powerful state of Qin, Qu was banished for opposing the alliance and accused of treason.During his exile, Qu Yuan wrote poetry. Twenty-eight years later, Qin captured Ying, the Chu capital. In despair, Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowning himself in the Miluo River.
It is said that the local people, who admired him, raced out in their boats to save him or at least retrieve his body. This is said to have been the origin of dragon boat races. When his body could not be found, they dropped balls of sticky rice into the river so that the fish would eat them instead of Qu Yuan’s body. This is said to be the origin of zongzi, sticky rice dumplings traditionally eaten during the festival.
Zongzi, from chinahighlights.com
