Dragon Boat Weekend

This weekend I got the chance to witness the famous Dragon Boat Festival which takes place every year in China. The history behind this event is long and fascinating, dating back over 2000 years. In 278bc during the Warring States period, poet and minister, Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowning himself in protest of the corruption going on at the time. The locals are said to have tried to save him by dropping balls of rice into the river in an attempt to make the fish eat the rice instead of him. This gave rise to both the dragon boat festival and zongzi, a traditional rice dish eaten at the day. 

Dragon Boat Weekend

A friend of mine found out about celebrations going on in Foshan which is located close to Zhuhai. A few of his Chinese coworkers offered to drive us around and take us to the festivities. We got there around 12 meaning that we had 2 hours to spare before it actually started. The Chinese coworkers took us to a local restaurant that had some interesting food. We were served chicken feet and head, frogs, and a lot of other things which I don't know it was. Might not have been the best meal I've had here but it was definitely one to remember!

Dragon Boat Weekend

Seeing the dragon boats compete against each other was really cool. I was surprised at how big they were. Some of them had at least 50 rowers. Unfortunately we had to catch the train back at 5 so we couldn't stay to watch the whole thing.