Staying at my friend's place in Shenzhen, I had my first Chinese breakfast. His mum prepared some zongzi and we also had some lychees. I happened to be in Shenzhen during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday. It is traditional at this time to have zongzi, a sticky rice composition, with some extra "bonus" content, all wrapped in bamboo leaves. The smaller ones in the photos had a sweet taste, and the larger ones were salty (or was it the other way round..?). I think the actual holiday was on Wednesday, but many people also had Monday and Tueasday off work (some working on the weekend instead). The origins of the holiday have to do with a man called Qu Yuan in ancient China. I was told that he drowned himself, and to prevent the fish from eating his body, the locals through rice into the water for the fish to eat instead. So the Chinese people now traditionally eat rice bundles (zongzi) in remembrance of this. Somehow dragon boat racing also comes into this, but not sure exactly how..? I found this page on wikipedia.
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