Chinese Dumpling Festival (Duan Wu Jie)

A Freshly Steamed Dumpling Unwrapped

The Chinese have long celebrated the Chinese Dumpling Festival on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. But its origin is popularly associated with the story of the patriotic poet, Qu Yuan, who despaired at the nation falling into enemy hands during the warring states period, committed suicide by drowning himself in a river on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. Folks threw dumplings into the river that fishes will not feed on the corpse of their beloved poet …

The festival has lived on to this day and most Chinese do enjoy a dumpling or two during this time of the year as part of the festivity. And so it was a hive of activity in our kitchen over the weekend – it was dumpling making weekend as Agnes prefers to make rather than buy the dumplings. She enjoys making them with selected ingredients to a recipe of our liking, and we have been enjoying delicious homemade dumplings since 🙂