UNS – The Center for Mandarin Language (PBM) Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta commemorate the Dragon Boat Festival by organizing a webinar on ‘Dragon Boat Festival’, Thursday (25/6/2020). The webinar aims to discuss the history, origins, traditions, and customs during the Dragon Boat Festival. During the occasion, the PBM UNS also introduce their activities in cultural exchange and Mandarin language to the society.
The webinar was opened by the Vice Rector for Academic Affairs, Prof. Ahmad Yunus. In his remarks, Prof. Yunus hopes that this webinar can strengthen the collaboration between UNS and Xihua University, China.
“This event is really interesting and it could be an opportunity for UNS to further strengthen relations with Xihua University, which has been established the Confucius Institute in the Faculty of Social Studies (FIB) since March 11th, 2019,” explains Prof. Yunus.
PBM UNS invites two speakers in the webinar, Mrs. Lu Yu, M.Sc., serving as the Director of PBM from China and Ms. Zhang Xiaoshan, a volunteer teacher at Xihua University. In front of one hundred participants, Mrs. Lu Yu explains the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival that becomes an annual festival for the Chinese.
“This festival is celebrated on the 5th day of the 5th month on the Lunar calendar and has become a tradition since ancient times until now. It is one of the biggest festivals for the Chinese,” explains Mrs. Lu Yu. Additionally, during the festival Bakcang become a special feature of the festival. The celebration itself is manifested in paddling dragon boat, which to date becomes a competition.
The second speaker, Ms. Zhang Xiaoshan, is explaining the story of Qu Yuan, to which she mentioned that he (Qu Yuan) was a minister known for his talent and loyalty to his country.
“It was a pity that many people liked him, however, the other civil servants defamed him and he was eventually expelled by the king. Due to his loyalty to the kingdom, he becomes extremely sad as he was worried about his country’s future. In the end, he decided to jump into a river,” explains Ms. Zhang Xiaoshan.
Due to the incidents, the citizens were saddened because they like Qu Yuan and they took initiative to search for him that coincides on the 5th day of the 5th month on the Lunar calendar. The citizens, who cannot find Qu Yuan were throwing Bakcang to the river in an attempt to prevent Qu Yuan from being eaten by fish and shrimp in the river. Furthermore, they also rowing a dragon boat while beating drums to scare the fish away from eating Qu Yuan’s body. This becomes the origin of the celebration of the Dragon Boat Festival every year. Humas UNS/Yefta/Dwi
