Rice Dumpling Festival

Tuesday (15/06/2010)
a) Wrapping Rice Dumpling
· Huang Lao Shi introduced briefly about Rice Dumpling. Then she showed them the materials needed for this activity.
· The kids must use their 2 hands to fold the bamboo leaf into half. Then, add some glutinous rice. Next, add a cocout candy and scoop a liitle more frice to cover it. Then, the kids had to wrap the dumpling tightly. Finally, they queued in a line to tie the pyramid-shaped rice with a string made from banana stem.Most kids needed guidance as their hands are quite small for the wrapping. Each kid made 2 dumplings.

b) The Legend.
· Some people also call this the Dragon Boat Festival instead of Rice Dumpling Festival (Duan Wu Jie).
· The kids recapped what they learnt from the morning Chinese session. Now, using English; I retold the story.
· Once upon a time, there lived a wise politician called Qu Yuan. The King and the citizens loved him. However, enemies disliked him and at many times gtrapped him. The king stopped believing him. Then, the enemies defeated the King and conquered the Kingdom. Qu Yuan felt so disappointed that he tied a rock to his leg and jumped from a cliff into a river. The villagers quickly searched for him but failed. Some decided to throw rice to avoid the fish eating his body. Later, the Chinese wrapped the rice into dumpling. Whe the villagers and fishermen rowed their boats, they also scared away the hungry fishes. That was why, it is also called the Dragon Boat Festival. However, people will row their Dragon Boats for competition.

c) Boat Folding.
· Devin said he knew how to fold a boat but his steps were a little more difficultn I taught them an easier way. They listened first and then upon my second demonstration, we did together. Fold the rectangle paper into half and another half. Then fold the angles to the innerside just like folding an aeroplane. Repeat again. Then fold the middle part to the centre edge. Open up the boat inside out to get a boat.