Duan Wu Jie (Rice Dumpling Festival)

Today is Duan Wu Jie, also known as the rice dumpling festival. It is a widely celebrated festival amongst the Chinese, to pay respect to the patriotic poet, Qu Yuan (pronounced as Chue Yuan).
Every year around this time I remember seeing my grandma busy in the kitchen preparing ingredients and wrapping glutinous rice with bamboo leaves. Then boiled these rice dumplings using charcoal fire pot. The whole process was fun, I used to play around in the kitchen trying to be grandma’s little helper by slicing the salted egg yolk using a thread! Of course I wasn’t of much help then!! :P
This tradition is then pass down to my mother. I think my grandma and mom make the best zongzi (rice dumpling),  a recipe from my beloved grandma. Their zongzi is the most flavourful and mouth watering ones! Especially the ham yuk zong!!!
This year I’ll missed sampling my mom’s zongzi due to my travel schedule, I’m not able to be home for this special festival. My mom will always make special zongzi for me ;) I like my ham yuk zong (salted meat rice dumpling) with lean meat, no chestnut, and no egg yolk. My zongzi always tied with special ribbon to indicate that’s mine!!! Muahahaaha!!! Hopefully mom will save a few for me when I return home in a few weeks time! 
 
I don’t remember much about the story behind this festival although my mom used to tell me the story when I was younger. I’ve retrieved the story of this “DUAN WU JIE” from http://www.knowingfood.com. Here’s how it all begins …

“The legend involves a really long and complicated throne-fighting war and political history. But to make a long story short: Qu Yuan was an important minister back in Chu Kingdom in ancient China. He had been known for his loyalty for the emperor of Chu, and loved his country greatly. However, His Majesty had not taken Qu Yuan's advice seriously, and he eventually got himself trapped and captured in a foreign land by his enemies, which then lead to his own death.



Sad and angry at the corrupted, dying Kingdom, Qu Yuan tied himself to a big rock and threw himself into the River of Puo Luo. The people then made rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves and threw them into the river. They believed this would stop the fish from eating Qu Yuan's body. Some would even row down stream in a boat, beating drums and shouting out loud in the hope to scare the fish away (it was believed that it is how the Dragon Boat event is related to the festival.
Since then, the 5th day of the 5th month in the Chinese calendar has been set as Duan Wu Festival to remember the incident. Although there were versions of legends and stories that indicate Duan Wu has existed way before Qu Yuan's death, the tradition still carries on.
The rice dumplings (ZongZi) are glutinous rice (or sticky rice in some countries like Thailand and Hong Kong) wrapped in bamboo leaves, or other large leaves (lotus is one of the more commonly used leaves). You can find all sorts of different fillings in the rice: pork, roast pork, chestnut, egg, salted egg, mushroom, red bean, or just simply without filling. They could be just white rice dumpling (not pre-fried), or brown (pre-fried with soya sauce).
Nowadays, you can buy Zongzi almost everyday of the year, in restaurants or hawker stores in most oriental countries such as China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore, and other Asian countries where large amount of Chinese reside.”