Shenyang Team Miller: 16 June 2010: Dragon Boat Days and the Imperial Palace in Shenyang

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

16 June 2010: Dragon Boat Days and the Imperial Palace in Shenyang

16 June 2010 China Update

Hello everyone! Happy "Dragon Boat Day"...don't know about Dragon boats? Neither did we before we moved to China!

It was a national holiday here on Wednesday and Rod and I took some time off to see another sight here in Shenyang. Before I get to that, here is something I got off the internet about the Dragon boat festival.

"The Chinese Dragon Boat Festival is a significant holiday celebrated in China, and the one with the longest history. The Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated by boat races in the shape of dragons. Competing teams row their boats forward to a drumbeat racing to reach the finish end first.

The boat races during the Dragon Boat Festival are traditional customs to attempts to rescue the patriotic poet Chu Yuan. Chu Yuan drowned on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in 277 B.C. Chinese citizens now throw bamboo leaves filled with cooked rice into the water. Therefore the fish could eat the rice rather than the hero poet. This later on turned into the custom of eating tzungtzu and rice dumplings.

The celebration's is a time for protection from evil and disease for the rest of the year. It is done so by different practices such as hanging healthy herbs on the front door, drinking nutritious concoctions, and displaying portraits of evil's nemesis, Chung Kuei. If one manages to stand an egg on it's end at exactly 12:00 noon, the following year will be a lucky one."

Rod and I didn't see the dragon boat races here in Shenyang, instead we went to the Imperial Palace (Forbidden City). This Forbidden city is only slightly smaller than the one in Beijing and is in really good shape for it's age...Some of these buildings have been around since the early 1700's and many of the artifacts on display were around in the 1300's. It's amazing!

This is Rodney and Sarah in front of the Royal throne building in the main coutryard. The entire complex is probably at least 100 buildings, all very traditional architecture.

Here is a close up of one of the roof lines...I always like the little figurines on the roofs, and also the little end caps on the ends of the tiles.

Close up of the roof line at the imperial city in Shenyang, notice the dragon rain spout and the end caps on the roof tiles.

At the Palace, there was a place where you could pay a few Yuan and get the traditional dress costumes...I'm sure none would have fit me, but I did get some good pictures of some of the Chinese visitors getting into them as you'll see below. The little girl only has the hat, but I thought she was adorable, so I took her picture!