端午节 Dragon Boat Festival



Been having problems with the old spam bots, and so this wasn’t posted when it was meant to.

So today is the Dragon Boat festival 端午节 (duan1 wu3 jie2) and it is marked by the eating of 粽子 (zong4 zi3) polished glutinous rice or better described as sticky triangular things that take forever to swallow. This festival essentailly celebrates the death of Qu Yuan, who committed suicide by drowning himself in a river.  Anyway, apart from the zong zi eating, most students that I know, woke up before dawn and climbed a nearby hill to watch the sunrise. So not to miss out, my first class was spent climbing that hill, which I’m told has a bomb shelter built under it as an expansion to the natural cave complexes allready there. 

As we walked along the busy road, stopping and covering our eyes from the dust every time a vehicle came past, I chatted with the students.  walking along the roadThe walk took us along this busy road, over a rather nice river,  and past thousands of discarded plastic bags and packaging that are sadly all too abundant throughout China.  It makes me annoyed that things are like this, the fact that nobody seems to give a monkeys.river  It seems the welfare of the environment is an alien thought to many, and the government appears to be obsessed with economic growth at all costs

The hill itself was very sandy in colour, almost like a beach and kind of reminded me of a quarry. The trees were yet to drop their cones and the grass was patchy, punctuated with lumps of red coloured sandstone.    the hill

Atop of the hill was a large pagoda like building and a Buddist temple or maybe a monistary, i’m not sure.   The walls were covered in graffitti  – something very unusual in these parts –  and the kind of graffitti you’d rubbishexpect back home: ‘He loves …’  ‘Call 13….. for’ etc…  In Changchun graffitti consists of peoples telephone numbers, as well as spraying a number there will also be a job – like plumber or plasterer or locksmith.  It’s like an advert for the unemployed wishing to get work. 

 

Here’s the rest of the photos for those that asked:

ditch  hill walking  trees  

 temple thing  temple front  dangerous steps 

class photo    zhong zi - sticky rice things, inside a leaf - tastes not good   more trees 

 on the way back


Go to the main page
anyShare分享到:

4 thoughts on “端午节 Dragon Boat Festival

  1. 糯米 is nuo4mi3

    zong4zi3 is 粽子, its key ingredient being 糯米.

    The phone numbers you saw spraypainted probably also included those of people who make fake documents, namely identifications.

  2. 糯米 is nuo4mi3

    zong4zi3 is 粽子, its key ingredient being 糯米.

    The phone numbers you saw spraypainted probably also included those of people who make fake documents, namely identifications.

  3. Hello David,

    Glad to see a picture with you actually in it! I have saved it as my wallpaper – surrounded by girls and with flowers in your hair… could from be the 60’s!

    Keep up the blog – everyone back home finds it interesting and it is good to know that you are still enjoying yourself out there.

    Looking forward to the next post,

    Dad.

  4. Hello David,

    Glad to see a picture with you actually in it! I have saved it as my wallpaper – surrounded by girls and with flowers in your hair… could from be the 60’s!

    Keep up the blog – everyone back home finds it interesting and it is good to know that you are still enjoying yourself out there.

    Looking forward to the next post,

    Dad.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *