Dragon Boat Festival in Taiwan

I did the little presentation yesterday to Amelie's 3 years old class.  One of her classmate's Mom was there too, she's fm. U.S.A., so she's more interested in the topic than the other 8 little kids!

Here is the pic we took 2 years ago on Dragon Boat races in Taipei, Taiwan:

So I showed them what we did in Taiwan.  There are more folk activities in Taiwan than in H.K. or China (must have dragon boat races and eat tzung tzu).  I gave-up drawing pic, cos I'm really very bad at drawing, so I just used Amelie's toys to represent.  I bought a real "Tzung Tzu"粽子 for them to take a look, but the U.S. Mom was very interested on the food, cos she've never tried it before, so I opened it and let her to eat it.

It said on the package that it's Taiwanese tzung tzu, but it's very different!  Usually Taiwanese tzung tzi will have a whole barbecue pork, a whole mushroom/ peanuts/......inside; but the one I got it here only have very very tiny pork inside.  I used a little door toy to tell them in Taiwan, people will hang calamus or moxa 艾草(I used spring onion to represent, cos I can't buy it here), and some will put up the picture of ChungKuei to drive away evil spirits & keep everyone healthy.  On that day, people believe noon water can stay fresh for longer than usual, and can be used it treat many illness, so lots of people loves to take a shower using noon water (I used the baby and the bath tub to rep.).

And if you can successfully stand an egg on its end exactly at 12:00 noon, then the coming year will be a lucky one.  So I bought an egg and a toy egg to show them, and see if they can stand the egg.  My E said it's more easier to do that on Dragon Boat Festival day at noon time, and he did succeed!  You can try this on this coming Sunday!

Some people will drink "Hsiung Huang wine"雄黄洒 for preventing evil.  Parents may make or buy fragrant sachets 香包 and hang these around their children's necks to protect their children and bring peace to them.  I can't find the sachets here, but in Taiwan, you can buy it everywhere, on the streets, in the shops......selling all kinds of fragrant sachets on that day, with diff. cartoon characters that children love, such as Hello Kitty, Mickey........So I bought the 12 animals I found here and tied the red strings and put some perfume on it (usually they have fragrant materials stuffed inside). 

Finally, this last part of giving out the sachets, the children looked more interested on the things I brought, and this was the happy ending, everyone has a fragrant sachet hanging around their neck!  (forgot to bring my camera !)