Zongzi, egg balancing and dragon boat races: Taiwanese in Czechia celebrated the Dragon Boat Festival with a full cultural program

The Czech Taiwanese Association held its annual Dragon Boat Festival celebration.

The Czech Taiwanese Association celebrated the Dragon Boat Festival (Duanwu) yesterday, a little ahead of time. On site there was a contest for the best-looking dragon boat, egg balancing, zongzi to eat and other traditional activities, which let compatriots get to know Taiwanese festival culture and experience the atmosphere of the holiday.

The Czech Taiwanese Association was officially founded in June 2019. Besides organizing Taiwanese festivals that bring Taiwanese culture closer to compatriots, it has also founded the Prague Taiwan School and the Taiwan Center for Mandarin Learning (TCML) in Czechia, which help the children of compatriots as well as foreigners improve their Chinese.

The Czech Taiwanese Association held a Dragon Boat Festival celebration on the 25th, for which about 50 people signed up. On site there was a contest for the prettiest dragon boat, egg balancing, zongzi to eat and fragrant sachets to make. The atmosphere was cheerful.

Students of the Prague Taiwan School and the Taiwan Center for Mandarin Learning also took the stage one after another and recited in Chinese the Tang dynasty poem "Spring Dawn" and the children's Dragon Boat Festival song "Celebrating Duanwu", which weaves together lines of poetry. In this way they showed what they have learned in Chinese.

Hsu Meng-ting, chairwoman of the Czech Taiwanese Association, said that the Dragon Boat Festival is one of the most popular holidays among Taiwanese, and that this year the association prepared a varied program so that everyone could experience its atmosphere.

Chinese teacher Tseng Mei-li said that she began curing the salted eggs 40 days ago, prepared the filling and washed the leaves a few days ago, and then spent a whole day wrapping zongzi. This morning she steamed them once more and brought them over. "We wrapped almost 200 of them, but luckily it's only once a year."

Tseng Mei-li said that every holiday has its own special food, and that by celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival, local people can learn about the meaning of Taiwanese holidays and about Taiwanese food culture. The children also brought dragon boats they had made themselves to the contest, and in the end a vote chose the prettiest one.

The celebration was attended not only by compatriots living in the capital, Prague, but also by compatriots who came from the city of Ostrava in eastern Czechia. Compatriot Ho Chia-lun said that she got up at 6 a.m. today and the drive took three and a half hours. "It's rare to be able to attend a Taiwanese event in Czechia, and I wanted my two children to come into contact with the Taiwanese language and culture." (Editor: Wei Shu)

Students of the Prague Taiwan School and the Taiwan Center for Mandarin Learning took the stage one after another and recited "Spring Dawn" and "Celebrating Duanwu" in Chinese.

At the Czech Taiwanese Association's Dragon Boat Festival celebration, one of the compatriots squatted on the floor and balanced an egg on its tip; it took him less than a minute.

A plush Formosan black bear and the signs of the Taiwan Center for Mandarin Learning and the Czech Taiwanese Association.

At the Czech Taiwanese Association's Dragon Boat Festival celebration, Chinese teacher Tseng Mei-li prepared zongzi, which the compatriots enjoyed.

At the Czech Taiwanese Association's Dragon Boat Festival celebration, compatriots made fragrant sachets on site.

At the Dragon Boat Festival celebration, the Czech Taiwanese Association held a contest for the prettiest dragon boat, and the best one was then chosen by a vote of those present.

The original text and photos are taken from the Central News Agency (中央社)