Dragon Boat Festival

Yesterday Noah's teacher asked me if I knew it was "duen MMM jeeet." I asked her if that was the same thing as the Dragon Boat festival, the whole thing about wut yuen. Yes, Yes it was. Hadn't it already passed? The first day had passed but the fifth day the actual day was yesterday. The truth is I only knew it was that time because of Facebook posts and the posters for the Dragon Boat races.. which I have never been to. Some people might think that is weird because I do lion dance, and am half Chinese, and even white people go to the Dragon Boat festival. But my only memories of actually participating in this holiday are from the The kung Fu school. Eating Jong, and a big feast (but there's a feast holiday once a month) and I think there was burning of offerings too. Not money, but purple paper roller up and then a group of those rolled up. Maybe that was something else though. I don't know why I never got into this holiday. The races, or the idea of them are cool. Maybe when my kids get old enough we will do that.
The only memory of this holiday growing up was the chapter we read about it in Kwong Kow Chinese school. and then hearing the story again two other times in my life and being able to recount what I already knew. Basically Wut Yuen was a poet/official who was very close to the Emperor. (rumor is Wut Yuen was gay too so exactly how close he was to the Emperor I don't know. I don't even know if he really was gay) Anyway Wut Yuen suggested certain policies that needed to be enacted otherwise the country would go to shit. (sounds kind of like America right now) But the Emeror's other advisors were like, "Don't believe Wut Yuen, he's a liar and is corrupt and is trying to pull the wool over eyes and" blah blah blah. So Wut Yuen had  bei yun WUT jau.. he was set up. And the way to say you are set up in Chinese is a verb form of Wut Yuen's name. THen Wut Yuen pulled a "sei bei nai tai" die let you see, killing himself to show he was telling the truth.
The Emperor's Dragon Boats RACED to find him or his body and everyone made Jong's (sticky rice and yummy fillings of sweet or savory favors wrapped in Ti leaves). The text books say the Jongs are to keep the sharks from eating his body. Everyone else says the JOngs are for Wut Yuen himself. And that infact they are made to this day for Wut Yuen himself to eat, now. But that's a very pagan superstitious way of thinking that text books usually try to minimize.
I remember the chapter because there was a nice landscape and sharks. I drew other sharks eating Wut Yuen in my book and despite (or because of the stress from) not actually being able to understand most of the Chinese that was written or spoken, the chapter imprinted itself on my mind. Yes I did learn something at Chinese school.