A Dragon Boat Festival myth busted: why sticky rice dumplings could be older than you think, and the best ways to eat one

According to Chinese legend, a man’s suicide in a river led to the creation of the Dragon Boat Festival and the eating of sticky rice dumplings during it

However, many cultures celebrate the day and eat their own version – in Malaysia and Singapore, it’s a Peranakan speciality. In Vietnam, it symbolises the sun

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An abalone rice dumpling and a chestnut rice dumpling from The Legacy House, at Rosewood Hong Kong. Photo: The Legacy House

Published: 11:15am, 3 Jun 2022

Is patriotic scholar Qu Yuan really why we eat sticky rice dumplings? The legend goes that Qu Yuan, an exiled poet and politician in the State of Chu during China’s Warring States period (475-221BC), committed suicide by drowning himself in the Miluo River when he heard that his state had fallen.

Villagers paddled out in boats to save him but, when they realised it was too late, they threw rice dumplings into the Miluo (in today’s Hubei province) to distract the fish from eating his corpse, and thrashed their paddles and beat their drums to scare them away. Thus, the Dragon Boat Festival (with its symbolic sticky rice dumplings or zongzi) was born.

But just how real is this legend?

Qu Yuan did exist and he certainly was a melancholic poet – evidenced by the work he left behind – and he did die in 278BC during the Warring States period. However, the first documented connection between him and zongzi did not appear until many hundreds of years later in the Shishuo Xinyu or “A New Account of the Tales of the World” – an early medieval anecdote collection.

A team at The Sun Life Stanley International Dragon Boat Championships 2019 in Hong Kong. Photo: Felix Wong

Most importantly, the date of the Dragon Boat Festival – the fifth day of the fifth month – marks the summer solstice, and the eating of zongzi was documented long before Qu Yuan existed.