Dumpling, in Singapore, we call it ‘zongzi‘ in Chinese, is a little packets of glutinous rice nicely wrapped up in bamboo leaves or lotus leaves.
Dumpling Festival in Singapore (also called Duan Wu Jie in Chinese) is a widely celebrated event held annually by the Chinese locals here. Many Singaporeans celebrate the Dumpling Festival on the 5th day of the fifth month of the Chinese calendar to pay their respect to Qu Yuan. It is one of the favourite celebration whereby groups of people gather together making dumplings.
This dumpling festival in Singapore is related to an ancient Chinese legend. Qu Yuan, an olden famous patriotic poet, was believed to have tied himself to a big rock and thrown himself into the river of Puo Luo. He was opposed to the injustice and corruption he saw in his own dying Kingdom. Local fishermen tried but failed to save him and later they offered rice as offerings (sticky rice packet wrapped in bamboo leaves). It is tied nicely with silk threads and thrown into the river as offerings. The fishermen believed that this would stop the fishes from eating Qu Yuan’s body. In order to remember Qu Yuan, it was later set as we now called ‘Duan Wu Jie’ to remember him.
The festival became an annual event adding Chinese drums and gongs, lion dances to the celebration. On this day, you will see dragon boats races by groups of young people on the Singapore River. The dragon boat were used in search of Qu Yuan’s body in the olden days.
The rice dumplings (zong zi) are made of glutinous rice which are very easy to make. You’ll find that there are all sorts of fillings used: chestnut, salted egg, pork, mushroom, red bean, or some are simply plain. You can also find many different dumpling recipes online. As Chinese dumpling comes in many varieties and it is gaining popularity as they taste so deliciously with different dumpling flavours, considering that there are many groups of dialects in the Chinese communities here in Singapore.
You can find or buy Dumpling everywhere in every corners in Singapore. Most of them can be found in restaurants, food courts or hawker centres.
