Last Saturday was actually the d-day
of the Duan Wu Jie (Dragon Boat
Festival) but since I was so busy till the weekend, I couldn’t post anything
about this great event. Luckily now the internet connection is quite good and
my tasks are done so it’s time to blog! ^^;
Duan Wu Jie
(Dragon Boat Festival) is a cultural event celebrated mainly by Chinese people
on the 5th day of the 5th month according to the Lunar
calendar. It was first held to commemorate Qu Yuan, a faithful servant of the
Zhou Dynasty, who was accused of betrayal due to opposing the King’s new ally.
To prove his innocence and show his disappointment, he committed suicide by
drowning himself in a river. The people who knew he was a good man, made Zong
Zi (glutinous rice dumplings wrapped with bamboo leaves) and threw them into
the river so the fish would not eat his body. Some people also believe that Qu
Yuan turned into god because of his good deed in life.
Recently, Duan Wu Jie has become a
festival celebrated globally. There are several places that held international
competitions last Saturday, like dragon boat rowing competition in Macau which
attended by various countries and international lion dance competition in Medan
last Sunday.
For the food, of course Bakcang (the
popular name of Zong Zi for Chinese people in South East region, derived from
Hokkian dialect) is one of the symbols of the event. Even though now people do
not make it merely for commemorating Qu Yuan, eating Bakcang has been an
irreplaceable custom of Chinese descendants all over the world.
The rice dumpling is commonly divided
into two types, i.e. salty Bakcang and sweet Cang. Both of them are made of
glutinous rice for the outer but they differ in the fillings. Salty Bakcang
usually contains mushroom, pork, chestnut, salted duck egg yolk, la chang (Chinese sausage), and small
dried shrimps; while the sweet one commonly contains red bean paste, or just
plain.
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| Glutinous rice |
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| Salty Bakcang fillings |
No matter sweet or salty, Bakcang is
one of the seasonal foods that we longed for, hahaha…. Since the market price
was so high, my mom decided to make it by herself. Her skill in cooking makes
me so proud of her! I took a picture of her when she was wrapping a Bakcang.
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| My lovely mother ^^ |
The results of the home-made Bakcangs
were so successful that I encouraged my mom to make more next year and sell
them to get extra income, haha… Here are the results:
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| Salty Bakcang |
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Besides the common glutinous rice
Bakcang, she also tried to make another Bakcang of different color which was
never seen before. It was black!
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| Black Bakcang! One of a kind! |
Hoho…maybe there’s no place on Earth that
sells black Bakcang like my Mom’s. It was actually made of a mixture of black
rice, carrot, and corn with the same fillings. Surprisingly, it tasted better!
It was not as rich as the glutinous rice and moreover, it was healthier. That
was surely a symbol of love from Mom to the family.
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