I wrote this last week. I wrote a lot and since nobody reads it I will post it with some of my photos from the small city that I live in in Henan China. These are not about the festival, these are just pictures that I have taken since September when I came back.
Dragon Boat Festival is usually the first weekend in June, to be honest I don’t understand how the Lunar Calendar works, but it’s easy to Google. Anyway, this is me retelling the legend of Dragon Boat Festival, badly
This weekend is Dragon Boat Festival in China. The popular modern interpretation is that it is based on the celebrated poet and politician Qu Yuan who was adopted by the Maoists as a symbol of their struggle after they won the civil war.
I’m going to retell it badly because this is based on what people who are not that good at English and me reading his wiki, so sorry to waste your time, but this probably won’t be my worst one.
Qu Yuan was a fairly prominent administrator in North China in the 17th century. He was one of those ‘man of the people’ guys. I don’t understand politics in China but it seems surprisingly similar to in England (which I also don’t really understand). I’m just going to call him an MP because that makes it easier.
He was one of those MPs who genuinely loved his job, like he would go around all of the town and sit down and talk with all of the locals who turned up, he would genuinely take notes and then make his people do what they could, he would take his trips up to Beijing and go and make his case on behalf of his people. He loved his job.
Aside. I’m cynical as fuck and don’t vote, I hate it all and it’s just mafia shit so I am not voting, but I do recognise that it’s just a job. I’m a teacher, I know loads of teachers are crap, I spend hours on work, I don’t have to I just am good at it and love it. Same for them. I don’t think it’s the same for the big politics. Soz. Ruining the blog
Anyway, so our boy Qu Yuan got a bit too good at it, as well as becoming the most powerful man in his province he was becoming powerful in Beijing as well. He was not scheming, he probably liked it, everyone is a prick, but he never messed up, except that he was very anti corruption, and got the attention of the royalty and they sent him out to west China where he couldn’t do anything.
Even to this day west China is where they send the dodgy officials. Again this is me remembering stuff that people told me that may not be true, this is fiction, but apparently a lot of the problems in west China to this day is because they send their worst people there who they can’t fire. A bit like the British Tory Party for the upper class.
Anyway, in his exile, Qu Yuan became a poet, poets in China are all chronic alcoholics, I don’t think that is specific to China, but he was also quite an important poet of his day. He’s not an all timer, but he’s seen as a brilliant poet. But yes, also alcoholism.
Now I don’t remember this bit if he went back home or did it out west, but because of how he had done everything right and still failed because of the world, the important part is that he one day jumped into a river to commit suicide.
And this is the origin of the festival. When the locals heard that their local hero had died in such an ignoble way, the local people raced out with their boats into the river to find his body, and threw rice balls into the river to stop the fish from eating him.
And today the Chinese people still eat this special countryside rice ball and have boat races in rivers in honour of this great local official.
The actual races are this weekend so I may update with some pictures. Towns with rivers have boats races and fairs in the evening.
I’m not even drunk, usually I’ll drink beers writing stuff and then have fun with the pictures drunk, I’m tired and not drunk, not sure what to do about the pictures
If you read all this, well done
Leave a Reply