Why do you eat zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival? In memory of Qu Yuan? You are wrong.

I especially like eating zongzi, especially rice zongzi, especially rice zongzi. Because only white rice zongzi can better enjoy the faint sweetness of glutinous rice and the fragrance of zongzi leaves, I also like the ritual feeling of dipping white rice zongzi in sugar, and I like to relive my childhood memories while eating.

When I was a child, every time I approached the Dragon Boat Festival, my family began to buy rice, zongye, sugar, yellow wine and wormwood early.

Buy glutinous rice when you buy rice. It is said that round glutinous rice will be more sticky and glutinous than long glutinous rice, and it will take a night to soak rice.

Jiaozi is mainly made of tender reed leaves which are abundant along the river pond, and bamboo leaves and lotus leaves are also very useful in some areas. Jiaozi leaves should also be bought in advance, blanched with boiling water and rinsed for later use.

Every Dragon Boat Festival, my mother prepares everything in advance, and my father is responsible for making zongzi with my brother and sister. Father patiently told us how to fold the leaves into triangles every time, and hold the bottom to avoid rice leakage. The rice leaves in my hand will never be wrapped. Every time I wrap zongzi, my father always leaks rice when he checks it, and my father will open it and wrap it again. I study hard with my father every year, but until today, I have never wrapped a complete zongzi, and I have ruined many zongzi leaves every time.

Later, my brother slowly learned to make zongzi. It seems particularly difficult for me to make zongzi. I seem to be more interested in playing with rice and water in the bucket where rice is soaked.

On the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival, all the zongzi should be wrapped and tied, then put into a pressure cooker or a large iron pot with a wood stove, add the clear water that overflows the zongzi, cook slowly overnight and keep warm until the next morning. On the morning of Dragon Boat Festival, we can eat zongzi.

At that time, people with better conditions will also prepare red beans, including red beans and jiaozi; Those who can make bean paste will grind red beans into bean paste and wrap jiaozi with bean paste. And red dates and zongzi. Jujube jiaozi homophones "junior high school", so it eats the most. Children who plan to study can win the championship early. In the past, Jinshi ate jujube jiaozi on the morning of taking the imperial examination. Up to now, some parents have to wrap dates and jiaozi for candidates in middle schools, universities and the morning of the college entrance examination.

Now there are egg yolks and all kinds of meat in jiaozi, and even seafood in jiaozi and so on. There are many kinds of them. Not only are there more and more zongzi fillings, but even rice has several colors such as yellow, purple and red, which can be described as colorful. The variety of zongzi is getting more and more delicious, but the sense of ceremony of Dragon Boat Festival is getting less and less.

In the past, the Dragon Boat Festival was not just about making zongzi. In order to exorcise evil spirits, the house should be thoroughly cleaned the day before the Dragon Boat Festival, and the dust and dirt in the house should be cleaned up, and then wormwood should be picked in the wild and inserted in the gate. In order to ward off evil spirits and prevent the "five poisons" from reaching the upper body, we also drink yellow wine at noon on the Dragon Boat Festival.

In earlier times, there were sacrifices to gods and ancestors, paper dragons, paper kites, colored silk threads and sachets. These customs are still circulating in some modern areas.

In short, the Dragon Boat Festival was bustling at that time, and there was no reason to miss it.

But last year, I missed the Dragon Boat Festival. It took me several days to hear about the Dragon Boat Festival. I won't know until I ask. It's been several days, and I'm too lazy to buy zongzi to eat alone. So, I haven't eaten zongzi for two years.

Nowadays, people care more about how much money they earn, but ignore the original meaning of life, forgetting that even if they make money, it is for a better life, for the richness of life, and for the real meaning we should pursue.

Today's festival, a short message represents all the ceremonies and feelings.

Someone sent me a message in the morning: "Dragon Boat Festival is healthy!" Only then did I know that it was the Dragon Boat Festival again. Look at the calendar. Fortunately, it's still the eve of Dragon Boat Festival. Thank you for reminding me that I won't miss the Dragon Boat Festival again this year as I did last year.

I began to become speechless, thinking about whether I should go to the supermarket to buy some white zongzi for myself during the Dragon Boat Festival. However, on weekends, I don't want to go out or go downstairs. I am struggling, hesitating whether to go out and buy zongzi. I heard the phone ring and picked it up: "Hello!

"Are you at home?"

"... hmm ...", I am most afraid of being asked this sentence, because if I answer that I am at home, the other party will probably say, I will go to your house and so on. And I, a wonderful ghost, never welcome others to my house.

"I remember the location of your home. I'm going downstairs. Can you go downstairs and win zongzi? I brought you a box of zongzi. "

The embarrassment and embarrassment that just came out suddenly vanished. As soon as the hanging heart fell, it was moved by the last sentence of sending zongzi. A warm current travels from the heart to the limbs.

Suddenly there is a feeling of being remembered, and suddenly there is a feeling of being cared for. Today is a good day, and this year's Dragon Boat Festival is a warm festival.

In the past two years, because of the epidemic and my daughter's expensive tuition, my pockets have been empty, and I have run out of ammunition and food. Therefore, it has always been rejected and despised by friends and girlfriends. In this era when people are measured by money, I sometimes feel that I have fallen into the bottom of society and have already lost my arrogance and tranquility. However, these two years have also made me mature and let me reflect.

Well, that's beside the point ...

Anyway, let's talk about zongzi.

Eating zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival has a long history, which is a traditional custom of China people. It was originally a folk festival to eliminate diseases and prevent epidemics.

Legend has it that the Dragon Boat Festival originated in wuyue. Before the Spring and Autumn Period, there was a custom of holding tribal totem sacrifices in the form of dragon boat races on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. Later, because the poet Qu Yuan died on this day, it became a traditional festival for the Han people in China to commemorate Qu Yuan. In some areas, Wu Zixu and Cao E are also commemorated.

Most academic circles think that "Qu Yuan's memorial theory" is far-fetched and unreliable.

Mr. Wen Yiduo believes that the Dragon Boat Festival is a festival for ancient Baiyue people to hold dragon totem worship activities. He demonstrated his views in detail in two papers, Dragon Boat Festival Examination and Dragon Boat Festival History Education (see Wen Yiduo's Complete Works). Wen Yiduo thinks that the binding between Qu Yuan and the Dragon Boat Festival only appeared in Wu Jun's Continued Harmony in the Southern Dynasties, and the Dragon Boat Festival has existed for a long time.

Scholar Hu Shi has always doubted whether there is a Qu Yuan, because there is no record about Qu Yuan in the history books before Sima Qian's Biography of Qu Yuan. During the hundreds of years from Sima Qian to Qu Yuan in the Warring States Period, the records about Qu Yuan were blank.

Qu Yuan first appeared in Sima Qian's Biography of Qu Yuan. If Qu Yuan really exists, there should be no vacancy in the history books. Sima Qian may have compiled touching stories from hearsay into Biography of Qu Yuan.

The binding of Qu Yuan and Dragon Boat Festival is a document of the Southern Dynasties, which was separated from Qu Yuan's suicide by jumping into the river for more than 700 years. In The Story of Jingchu Times, Qu Yuan threw himself into the Miluo River around 278 BC, and the patriotic place and goal was Chu. At that time, Qin was responsible for playing the role of an aggressor. Let's not discuss whether there really is such a person as Qu Yuan in history. If Qu Yuan is really patriotic, he can go to the front to kill the enemy bravely and run to the river to "commit patriotic suicide". This patriotic method is very different. From the present point of view, Qu Yuan is as depressed as I am.

The legendary story of Qu Yuan goes like this: In 278 BC, Qin Jun attacked Kyoto, the state of Chu. Seeing that his motherland was invaded, Qu Yuan was heartbroken, but he was always reluctant to give up his motherland. On May 5th, after writing his masterpiece Huai Sha, he died in Miluo River and wrote a magnificent patriotic movement with his own life.

If Qu Yuan is really patriotic, he only loves his Chu State. Since then, many countries have appeared in this land of East Asia, and historical dynasties have changed again and again.

It was reasonable for the descendants of Chu to eat zongzi in memory of Qu Yuan at that time, but it was a bit puzzling for six foreign descendants of Qin, Qi, Yan, Zhao, Wei and Han to eat zongzi in memory of Qu Yuan. Besides, it has been nearly two thousand years since Qu Yuan died. In such a long time, the national origins have been greatly integrated. How many real Chu people are left? Who knows how much blood they have? Or are you descended from the Qin people?

According to research, many Dragon Boat Festival customs that have been passed down to this day have nothing to do with Qu Yuan, such as Zongzi. The earliest written record comes from Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi, and the custom of eating Zongzi predates Qu Yuan's death for more than 400 years.

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I am alone in Hainan, far from my relatives, and my daughter is in other places. It's really hard for me to have a sense of ceremony and feel boring when I spend the holidays alone. So I want to write an article, wishing myself a healthy Dragon Boat Festival, and wishing all those who can spend every festival with my family and America a healthy Dragon Boat Festival!

Thank you for remembering my friend in this festival.

Happy holidays to relatives in a foreign land!