Journey & Adventure in Taiwan: Dragon Boat Festival
Have you ever heard of the Dragon Boat Festival? Well prior to coming to Taiwan neither had I. I first heard about it from my now friend and coworker Shin-Yee. She mentioned being apart the World Vegetable centers dragon boat team for the Dragon Boat Festival. I had no idea what that was and she caught onto that. She then went to her computer and searched Dragon Boat Festival along with explaining that it was like a competition that consisted of teams rowing a boat that is shaped like a dragon. Later I found out that June 18th we had off due to the festival. In Taiwan the Dragon Boat Festival is recognized as a national holiday along with the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Chinese New Year.
The Dragon Boat Festival has two thousand years worth of history behind it. The festival is also known as the Duanwu Festival and it originates from China. It takes place on the fifth day of fifth month on the traditional Chinese Calendar. Racing dragon boats is a major part of the festival it is like the main attraction. People come to the festival eat lots of food, spend time with friends and family, and watch the races. In the races there needs to be 18 people in a boat rowing for a team. When it comes to the races there two stages to it the preliminaries which took place on Sunday and then the final races which take place on Monday. The World Vegetable Centers dragon boat team won their preliminary race against National Cheng Kung University economics team, with a racing time of two minutes ten seconds. The next day they competed in the final races earning fourth place.
While attending the festival I of course had the chance to try some more foods.One of them being fried cuttlefish. The breading of the fried cuttlefish tasted kind of sweet to me but it was still good. From what I have seen Squid seems to be popular. I saw it a lot at the night market as well as at the Dragon Boat Festival. Now the only Squid related dish I have ever had was Calamari which is fried squid. That was until I went to the festival and tried grilled squid which taste-wise wasn’t that bad. A well known drink here in Taiwan is Bubble Milk Tea. The drink contains milk tea of course along with these black bubbles at the bottom. The black bubbles that are at the bottom don’t really have a taste, to me they take on the taste of the milk tea.
One thing I never imagined was being able to celebrate my eighteenth birthday in another country. Along with celebrating in two different time zones due to Taiwan being twelve hours ahead of Maryland. It was an awesome experience thanks to the people I work with here. Thank you to Ms. Aileen, Mr. Huang, Eric, and Shin-Yee for going out to dinner with me in celebration of my birthday. This was a birthday to remember.
