It’s party time in the Middle Kingdom. Well, er, no actually. May 28 brings the calendar around to the yearly Dragon Boat Festival, or duānwǔ jié (端午節).

Many cities in North America celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival, or the Tuen Ng Festival, as it’s known in Cantonese. My former Canadian city held dragon boat races each June, in which drunken and out-of-shape businessmen raced big boats on a local river. None of them knew what the races represented, except a reason to be publicly intoxicated, and risk drowning hoping to win a trophy.

Like most folk festivals, the roots of the Dragon Boat Festival are not particularly pleasant. In the days of yor (or China’s Warring States Period), lived Qu Yuan, a government minister with the Chu regime. He was a good man that wanted to maintain Chu’s sovereignty in the face of the Qin dynasty’s advances (Did you see Hero, with Jet Li? Same time period.)

Qu Yuan was cast out of court by jealous and corrupt ministers. Depressed by thinking about the future, he wandered the countryside composing poems from folktales. His works are still considered classics in Chinese literature.

After the Chu capital was captured by Qin forces in 278 BC, Qu Yuan grabbed a rock and walked into a local river to commit suicide, a protest against the excesses and corruption of the new Qin Kingdom.

There a few different stories as to what happened next.

The more heroic version has local villagers racing across the river in their boats, attempting to rescue Qu Yuan. Today’s dragon boat races commemorate the villagers efforts to save the poet.

In an alternate version, the villagers take to their boats, bang drums and throw food into the water to keep the fish from eating Qu Yuan’s body. The zongzi, a reed-wrapped rice dumpling, was the food used to prevent aquatic creatures from consuming Qu Yuan’s remains. Zongzi, the traditional festival food, is eaten each year during the celebrations.

Of course, just like Christian holidays (Christmas and Easter’s pagan roots), there is yet a third explanation. Scholars have discovered other festivals in China, celebrating the harvest of winter wheat, held about the same time each year as Qu Yuan’s protest. These agrarian festivals were held in areas that knew nothing of Qu Yuan or his final swim. Researchers speculate that the harvest festivals and Qu Yuan’s legacy merged.

This historic day was made a national holiday a 2008  government revamp of holidays. International Labor Day (May 1) used to be a three day holiday, which was usually extended to five days to stimulate tourism. It was a dandy break, exactly half-way through the school term. This was nixed, and three long weekends, one in April, May, and June were substituted. It’s a lot like Canada and her summer long weekends.

I’m always happy to have a day off, especially when it involves eating dumplings and listening to sad yet heroic old tales.
qu yuan image from: biografiasyvidas.com
dragonboatimage from: chinatownconnection.com
zongzi image from: china.org.cn

The remnants of firecrackers, in small Hunan, China village, on the first day of Chinese Lunar New Year. In China the new year is called  Spring Festival. 2009 is the Year of the Ox. Children born under the ox sign will be quiet, dependable, and achieve great things through hard work.

A young Chinese couple on a Bicycle

I’m in Beijing, as one of the text books I use says, “The center of politics and culture.” I have no idea how much time I will have to see the sights, some I hope. Ah, 4 days in Beijing, China, engaging in some China travel, almost for free. Life is good sometimes.

Maybe I’ll rent a bicycle…

The Chinese break dancers arrived late in the day. Each afternoon and evening they dance to promote a new sporting goods store.

I was sitting next door, on the patio of our local coffee purveyor, camera in hand to document a Kentuckians Chinese-style Derby party.  I needed a smaller lens, the 70-200 to big to get all the action without me leaving my seat. Yes, lazy. I should have bought the 24-85 f/2.8 when I had the chance.

Do people in the west still break dance? I thought this a dead art form.

May 1st is International Labor Day in China, or May Day if one goes by the terms of old. What does this mean? Simple: A day off.

International Labor Day celebrations in Kunming, China, 2008.

May Day celebrations harken back to the days of yore. Early Europeans celebrated a number of deities May 1, which was seen as a the halfway point between spring and summer. Christianity put a damper on the pagan celebrations and replaced them with Easter. The ancients held raucous celebrations, more about that latter.

May 1 is also known as International Labor Day. In many nations it is a “workers’ holiday” commemorating the Chicago’s Haymarket Massacre of 1886. Workers were shot and killed by police while striking for an eight-hour work day.

Until 2008, International Labor Day was a 7 seven day holiday in China. It was perfect: The halfway point of the school term. Two months done, two months left. Seven glorious days to travel in The Middle Kingdom, along with 1 billion other people.

China’s national holidays were changed in 2008, leaving May Day as a single day off. But, three more holidays were gained.  Tomb Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, and Mid-Autumn Festival, formerly folk celebrations, were each made a national holiday. The seven-day May Day holiday became four long weekends. With that, holidays in China became much like Canada.

International Labor Day is a national holiday in China, Nepal, Germany, Brazil, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Norway, and Hungary. Because of the May Day celebrations held in the former USSR and communist bloc countries, America celebrates Law Day or Loyalty Day on May 1. American legislators moved Labor Day to September in 1958. Canada also celebrates Labor Day in September, and Australia and New Zealand in late October.

I labor, so I’m pretty happy to have a holiday. Whether it’s honoring a nearly forgotten Roman goddess or nineteenth century labor martyrs, I’m happy to have a day sans work. Given the raucous celebrations of old, I will spend the afternoon of May 1 at a local establishment taking part in another ancient ritual: Happy Hour. My colleagues and I will have our own raucous celebration, raising a pint to the Haymarket Four, and whichever deities we can remember as our memories become clouded with two-for-one malty beverages.

Saturday I’ll visit the former Portuguese colony of Macau (weather permitting). Next week, I’m off to Beijing for four days and a photographic equipment trade show. After more than four years in China I may finally get to see this Great Wall I’ve heard so much about.

To all and sundry, Happy International Labour Day, or May Day!

Image: Go Kunming

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The people that come to teach English in China may have learned a little Mandarin before arriving in The Middle Kingdom. That usually goes out the window: The classroom and the street are vastly different environs.

Ni Hao, they will say (Hello). Or perhaps, Xie Xie (Thank you).  Other than those two key expressions, new people teaching English in China find themselves lost in a linguistic maze. The local accent, the rapid-fire delivery, lead to confusion, bewilderment, and more often than not, fright.

There is one phrase all new ESL teachers learn: Something key to their survival in the high-pressure, crazy, dog-eat-dog world of teaching English overseas:

Pijiu.

Beer. That’s right. Before many learn to say (in Chinese) “My name is Bob, I’m an English teacher,” they learn to say: Pijiu. The scholars may learn to say: Liang ping pijiu (two bottles of beer).

As they learn the magic word they also learn to forget the polite customs of their homelands. A wave at a waitress might result in a wave back, or a smile. Softly calling, “Xiao Jie,” (miss) will not get cold bottles of pijiu to your table. Chinese restaurants at meal times can be a controlled riot. You must be loud to be heard over the din of other diners, the kitchen, and the honking horns outside.

Politeness is forgotten as quickly as pijiu is assimilated into the linguistic psyche. The wave or cleared throat is replaced with the bellowed, “Pijiu,” the English teacher holding an empty bottle over their head like a trophy that is be both feared and admired. Even if the waitress doesn’t understand the pronunciation of pijiu, the dead soldier is a visual cue.

That cultural hurdle overcome, new people teaching English in China can learn more useful Chinese phrases like: How much is this?

Photo: Me and my new Strobist gear.