Today is the day and I realised there were no dumplings at home. So I went all over the city to look for bak chang (as we call it here) literally, meat dumplings but I was greeted by this sign in every shop I went to:
With the help of Google I managed to locate many different dumpling sellers and I finally found one that was still selling on this day. And I wasn't the only remiss customer they had. There was a long queue of people who also needed to get their bak chang on Duanwu day itself. This is a tradition that has been going on for the last 2,500 years.
In the West, it's more commonly called the Dragonboat Festival. Although dragonboat races are always held in this season because of the festival, we don't call it that at all. It's very hard to explain why we call it Duanwu because in Chinese, homonymous associations are very important. In English, homonyms are only useful as a joke, as in a pun. But Dragonboat festival is a good name for today - it's what the world usually sees on this day - the dragonboat race.
A stranger online who saw this pic asked me if there was any significance in my using Chinese chopsticks. Absolutely none. I naturally find it easier to use Chinese chopsticks but I have no problem using Japanese or Korean chopsticks or a fork. Or even my fingers - which is traditional for South Asians. As long as I can convey food to my mouth.
Happy Dragonboat Festival!!!
