Duanwu Festival (Part 2)

At the end of my last post, (which if you have time, you'll want to read first), we were in Yuecheng, stuck on the wrong side of the river, trying to connect with Stella's friend Joanna on the other side. 

So off we trekked to the nearest bridge, only to find the first access gate to the stands locked. So was the second. And everyone exiting was wearing an official lanyard. So we stopped at a roadside food stand and soon we had an audience of about ten people involved in the discussion of how the heck we were supposed to get to the bleachers for the races on this side of the river. Eventually a security guard in a golf cart was flagged down and convinced to give us a ride to the main gate. Which was a long way away, especially since the battery was almost dead, giving it a top speed of perhaps 5 miles an hour. So he drove us right through the police barricade and dropped us off. We were finally (almost) there! One more 15 minute walk and we found Joanna. We now had 3+ hours to kill until the next races (which many people continued to inform Stella and Joanna on our behalf, the Russians had advanced to the afternoon semifinals, so not all was lost). So what does one do while waiting for dragon boat races to start? Why you visit your official Jiangsu Provincial Racing Pigeon Training Center, of course!

This motel's gone to the birds! yuk, yuk yuk....!

They wouldn't let us go in any further...but they told us they had 6,000 pigeons!

Next stop? Why, let's go pick peaches of course! Stella didn't know this, but it turns out the gentleman selling the peaches is the uncle of another of Stella's friends we happened to meet later in the day. The peaches we were allowed to pick were in a hothouse....so not that sweet. They are strangely crunchy and remind me more of a plum than anything else. But Stella and Joanna assured us they were a type of peach.

Darling daughter of a worker at the orchard. They weighed our fruit on their bedside table.

 

So now it's time to finally head back to the races. On the way we saw the Russian team. We naturally had to adopt them as our home team for the day, because if you're the only two Caucasians in a sea of Asians, you are by default assumed to be Russian. Why else would two Caucasians be there, other than to cheer on their motherland?

 

So what is Duanwu Jie all about anyway?  If you'll bear with me, here's a little history lesson--I promise it will bring a bit more sense to a holiday that involves dragon boat races and throwing rice into rivers!

Today, June 6, is Duanwu Jie--Double Fifth Day. The date changes every year. It's the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in the Chinese calendar and the final day of the three day celebration in honor of the poet Qu Yuan (340-278BC). Qu was a much loved member of the royal family who fought against corruption in the court. He was also a minister to the Zhou Emperor in his home state of Chu. This era is known as the Warring States Period, when many feudal states were trying to carve out their own kingdoms. When the Emperor allied Chu with the increasingly powerful state of Qin, Qu was exiled for his strong opposition to this alliance. In exile, Qu taught and wrote a prolific amount of poetry, for which he is remembered today. Twenty-eight years into his exile, the state of Qin conquered his home state of Chu. In despair, he wrote this final poem, and then drowned himself in the Milou River, on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month. (See, I told you this was related to the holiday!)

Many a heavy sigh I have in my despair,
Grieving that I was born in such an unlucky time.
I yoked a team of jade dragons to a phoenix chariot,
And waited for the wind to come,
to soar up on my journey.

It is said that Qu was so loved, that the local fisherman raced out in long boats beating drums to scare the fish away, and threw zongzi (rice dumplings) into the water so the braver fish not scared off by the drums would not eat Qu Yuan's body.  So to this day, people commemorate his death with dragon boat races and the eating of zongzi. The Chinese also believe if you can stand a raw egg on it's end today, the rest of the year will be very lucky.

We finally made it!

Starting line

It really was fun to watch. And talk about synchronization! The fast teams just looked flawless, and then there were some pokey teams wearing life jackets.

Before the final races, they painted the dragons' eyes red in order to wake them up.

We made some new friends!

These girls were darling! Twelve years old and eager to speak English with us. They were surprised we could speak a little Chinese ourselves! They were very outgoing and precocious (which Stella and her friends were constantly apologizing for, but I thought they were darling). They even told Brian he needed to shave! They were ecstatic when I asked to take a picture with them.

Then there was Stella's friend's brother's mother-in-law with her grandson. He was intrigued yet terrified by Brian.

Then these boys joined the bandwagon. Doesn't Brian look thrilled at this point?

The two younger boys were darling and although they didn't speak English, they seemed content just comparing their shoe size to Brian's, checking out his watch, and trying to touch his hair when he wasn't looking. When I pulled the camera out, the older boy seriously tackled the two kids just so he could be in it as well. Obnoxious. This photo is after giving him the stink eye to calm down. Lastly there was a random woman who gave me her baby (who immediately started crying),  took a photo, and left. Bizarre. We were truly a tourist attraction.

On to the races! Here's the Russians ready for action. They placed 2nd, so they advanced to the finals.

In the middle of the races, this garbageman trolled right on through.

 

So I know this was a long post--I hope making it to the end was tolerable! It was just such a fun day I didn't want to leave anything out. The only photo I have of the whole group we spent the day with (it grew to 3 of Stella's friends by the afternoon) is out of focus....but hopefully we can spend more time with them in the future. I truly had a fantastic day--hopefully they did too and didn't simply feel like they were doing Stella a favor by spending time with us. Regardless, I'm officially declaring it "my best day in China (so far)."