Qu Yuan, the great poet.

Thursday (21/06/2012)

a)      Story-telling.

l       Kids gathered in a group to tell fellow friends the Legend of Dragon Boat Festival or “Duan Wu Festival” or “Rice Dumpling Festival”.

l       Every kid was encouraged to tell parts of the story. Each kid must try speaking fluently in English. Marks were given as encouragement. Ying Qiao was a great example because she spoke fluently in English. For vocabulary that she didn’t know of, she spoke in Mandarin. I helped her with those phrases.

l       The kids’ version was almost perfect except that they mixed up some facts.

b)      Qu Yuan, the great poet.

l       Qu Yuan was born in the Chu Dynasty. He was a great poet, a kind man and a great teacher. He helped his people a lot. Everyone loved him including the King. Jealousy aroused and they betrayed Qu Yuan. The King believed the traitors and expelled Qu Yuan out of Chu Kingdom. He had to lived in other states. He continued to write poems and became a famous poet. However, a few years later when Chu Dynasty was conquered by Qi Dynasty; Qu Yuan felt that he was useless at defending his country. He felt depressed and jumped into “Miluo River”. Some villagers saw him and quickly rowed boats to save him. They threw rice in to the river to avoid fish from feeding on Qu Yuan’s body. However, they failed at finding Qu Yuan. That night, a friend of Qu Yuan dreamt of him. Qu Yuan asked for triangle or pyramid shaped dumplings to scare away a dragon in the river; which was dangerous to Qu Yuan. The next day, the villagers threw dumplings as instructed. Thus, people celebrate Dragon Festival or Duan Wu Festival on the 5^th. day of the Chinese calendar 5^th. month.This year is 23/06/2012 on Saturday.

c)       The Poisonous Animals.

l       On this day, legend said that 5 poisonous animals would be out and threaten people. They were snakes, toads, scorpions, centipede and lizards. The reason is because the Earth is the neaerest to the Sun on this day. Thus, these animals are everywhere. To defend oneself, Chinese people do praying rituals to scare them away. They believed dragons are the most powerful animal as it brings rain to the hot day.

l       On this day, the gravity is the strongest. Thus, eggs can stand easily on the floor. It is believed 2 days before Duan Wu Festival already shows good signs of strong gravity. Thus, kids and I went experimenting the egg on the floor. I did it! Alisa got it too! Very few kids got it because the gravity is still not that strong. So, everyone; let’s experiment on Saturday noon!

d)      Video Clip: Dragon Boat.

l       We watched a clip to have a better idea about Dragon Boat.