Taiwan’s Dragon Boat Festival customs: eating braised noodles, eating fried hammers, and cooking dragon boats
The fifth day of the fifth lunar month is the Dragon Boat Festival, an ancient traditional folk festival in my country. Among Taiwanese folk, May is called the "poisonous month", "lone month" and "evil month", so every family puts mugwort flowers on it, drinks realgar wine and takes realgar baths. Women also made satin sachets containing spices, called "sachets", and wore them on children to ward off diseases and plagues. In addition, when Taiwan celebrates the Dragon Boat Festival, they eat braised noodles, fried hammers, and dragon boats, which are quite unique and interesting.
Eating braised noodles: Taiwanese people eat braised noodles during the Dragon Boat Festival. This was originally a famous snack in Zhangzhou, southern Fujian. It is made with shredded eggs, shredded pork, shredded bamboo shoots, fragrant rhubarb, squid and other ingredients, plus pork soup, sweet potato starch, etc., and cook it into a rice soup-like form, then mix it. When eating, add a little turnip, fried garlic, pepper and other seasonings. It has a unique flavor and is deeply loved by Taiwanese people. Eating braised noodles was originally a custom in southern Fujian when worshiping Qu Yuan during the Dragon Boat Festival. It was later spread to Taiwan by the people of southern Fujian.
Eating fried hammer: In Tainan, people have the custom of eating "fried hammer" (also called fried dumpling) instead of eating rice dumplings. It is said that when Zheng Chenggong regained Taiwan, the military rations were insufficient and there was no rice to make rice dumplings during the Dragon Boat Festival, so the people donated peanuts, sweet potatoes, and potato starch to the army. The army mixed these foods together and fried them into hammers to celebrate the festival. Since then, this custom has been followed in Tainan and has gradually become a special custom.
On the first day of May, preparation drums are played. Grand dragon boat races are held in places near rivers such as Tamsui, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Changhua, Chiayi, Keelung, and Penghu in Taiwan. Taiwan's Dragon Captain is four to five feet tall, covered in scales and decorated with red flags on the boat, which is very spectacular. Some dragon boats also build various archways. On Dragon Boat Festival, people from all over Baodao gathered on the river bank, cheering and striving to be the first. The drumming and music on the bank were loud and lively.
Dragon boat racing is called "dragon boat racing" in Taiwan. Before the official dragon boat race, Jiang and Xie Jiang must be sacrificed first, and the ceremony is quite grand. When offering sacrifices to the river, a dragon boat is rowed into the river to burn incense and pray, and throw paper money and rice dumplings, praying that the river will no longer endanger the safety of living beings. This situation is now rare.