What is “Ba Zhang” Day?
I have talked about this in my now-defunct blog but it seems timely to bring this up again.
Many of my fellow Singaporeans would know; we tend to associate the food we eat on a festive day with the day itself. Ba zhang (肉粽) is the Hokkien term for rice dumplings with meat filling. Usually, this is eaten during the Dragon Boat Festival or Duan Wu Jie (端午节) in Chinese.
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Dragon Boat Festival / Duan Wu Jie
The Dragon Boat Festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth month in the lunar calendar. This translates to 22 June this year in the Gregorian calendar.
The reason why it’s called Duan Wu Jie is because duan refers to the beginning, wu refers to midday, and jie is a term for a festive day. Together, they mean the start of summer, when the weather is the hottest.
But remembering the day as Duan Wu Jie feels like a mouthful. So, it’s easier to just call it by the food that is eaten on this day — ba zhang.
