Dragon Boat Festival - Chinese

Hello! I am the Dragon Boat Festival. On my special day, people have fun watching exciting boat races on the water. The boats are very special. They are long and thin, and they are painted to look just like colorful dragons! They have a dragon’s head on the very front and a pointy dragon’s tail on the back. A team of people gets inside each boat. They use paddles to push the water and make the boat go super fast. A drummer sits at the front, beating a big drum. Boom, boom, boom! The loud drumbeat helps the paddlers row at the same time.

After the races, it is time for a special treat. A food that many people eat for me is called zongzi. Zongzi are yummy dumplings made from sticky rice. The rice is carefully wrapped up inside large green leaves from bamboo or reed plants. They are shaped like little pyramids and look like tiny presents. Unwrapping the leaves is part of the fun. Inside is the soft, sticky rice that is a favorite snack during my celebration.

My story began a long, long time ago. People celebrate me to remember a kind poet named Qu Yuan. A well-known story says that people raced their boats to try and save him. They also dropped rice into the water so the fish would eat the rice instead of bothering him. Today, people still have dragon boat races and eat zongzi to remember this story from long ago. It is a day full of color, excitement, and tasty food.