端午节快乐！
端午节为每年农历五月初五，主要习俗有吃粽子和划龙船。端午节的由来与传说很多，不过唯一一个深入我脑的，只有屈原的故事。
（截至中国互联网新闻中心）
据《史记》“屈原贾生列传”记载，屈原，是春秋时期楚怀王的大臣。他倡导举贤授能，富国强兵，力主联齐抗秦，遭到贵族子兰等人的强烈反对，屈原遭馋去职，被赶出都城，流放到沅、湘流域。他在流放中，写下了忧国忧民的《离骚》、《天问》、《九歌》等不朽诗篇。
公元前278年，秦军攻破楚国京都。眼看自己的祖国被侵略，屈原心如刀割，但是始终不忍舍弃自己的祖国，于五月五日，在写下了绝笔作《怀沙》之后，抱石投汨罗江身死，以自己的生命谱写了一曲壮丽的爱国主义乐章。
传说屈原死后，楚国百姓哀痛异常，纷纷涌到汨罗江边去凭吊屈原。渔夫们划起船只，在江上来回希望打捞他的身体。有位渔夫拿出饭团、鸡蛋等食物丢进江里，觉得说是让鱼龙虾蟹吃饱了，就不会去咬屈大夫的身体了。
人们见后纷纷仿效。一位老医师则拿来一坛雄黄酒倒进江里，说是要药晕蛟龙水兽，以免伤害屈大夫。后来为怕饭团为蛟龙所食，人们想出用楝树叶包饭，外缠彩丝，发展成棕子。
以后，在每年的五月初五，就有了龙舟竞渡、吃粽子、喝雄黄酒的风俗；以此来纪念爱国诗人屈原。
我是个粽子迷，年轻时可以一整天都吃粽子，一餐三粒粽子也难不倒我。。。可惜现在年纪不小了，粽子里的糯米飯不好消化，一天极限只可以吃两粒。现在有点担心，新加坡的小孩近年越来越“洋化”，许多小孩华语也不大会说（Kpo Kia 是其中一个！），也不关心传统文化（也许读书压力真的太大了？），若干年后，他们会知道为什么要吃粽子吗？说不定到时，他们还会以粽子不健康，连碰也不碰了。
想想我还是最好多跟Kpo Kia说华语，说传统故事，希望她别失了“根”。毕竟是华人，现在的一口“洋腔华语”，有时真的吃不消，哈哈！Kpo Kia 的爷爷奶奶都不会华语，家人大多跟我的教女方式又不一致，只有我一个“热脸”，不晓得有没有办法教好，祝我好运吧！
Happy Dragon Boat Festival!
Dragon Boat Festival (also known as Dumpling Festival) falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of lunar calendar every year, Chinese usually eat dumpling and have dragon boat racing on this day. There are a few stories regarding the origins of the festival, but out of these, only one give me the deepest impression – the story of Qu Yuan 😛
(Extracted from Wikipedia)
Qu Yuan was a minister (and also a poet) during the Warring States period of the Zhou Dynasty. A cadet member of the Chu royal house, Qu served in high offices. However, when the king decided to ally with the increasingly powerful state of Qin, Qu was banished for opposing the alliance and even accused of treason. During his exile, Qu Yuan wrote a great deal of poetry. Twenty-eight years later, Qin captured Ying, the Chu capital. In despair, Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowning himself in the Miluo River.
It is said that the local people, who admired him, raced out in their boats to save him, or at least retrieve his body. This is said to have been the origin of dragon boat races. When his body could not be found, they dropped balls of sticky rice into the river so that the fish would eat them instead of Qu Yuan’s body. This is said to be the origin of dumpling (zongzi).
I am a dumpling lover, and used to be able to eat 3 dumplings a meal, or even for the whole day. However as I aged, my intake have to reduced to around maximum 2 dumpling a day as the glutinous rice is harder for us to digest. 🙁
Is a bit worried that Dragon boat festival and the stories behind it will be lost as most young Singaporean these day not only can’t speak proper Chinese, some aren’t even interested in the Chinese culture. Who knows one day the new era Singapore generation might decided that dumpling is not healthy food and not even worth to reserved this traditional Chinese food?
Guess I better speak more Mandarin and share more Chinese stories with Kpo Kia in hope that she will grow some interest and Chinese and improve her ‘Ang moh accent Chinese’. But having both her paternal grandparents not abling (or willing) to converse in Mandarin, and the other family members and my teaching style is quite different, I am expecting a lot of Challenges. Good luck to my ‘parenting goal’ of this year!