The unusual climate change that has been happening for the past few years has made summers hotter and longer. It’s so hot that it seems that not many people think of the beginning of the heat anymore. That is the Duanwu Festival, also known as Duanyang Festival. I’m different, no matter how the seasons change, I still remember Duanwu Festival in my heart, thinking about it for the rest of my life.
In my memory, traditional Tet always urges the spirit to turn towards it. My family always respects all traditional rituals, so any Tet in the four seasons is paid attention to. I remember, one hot day in early May, my mother dried the whole yard of golden rice under the blazing sun. Every thirty minutes, my mother shook the rice to dry. I followed my mother down to the yard, felt my feet burning hot and then quickly ran up to the porch. At that time, my whole village did not have electricity. My grandmother always spread her arms wide to fan hard so that the three or four grandchildren, naked as pupae, could lie on the ground to cool down. Then she reminded my mother: "Sister, look at the jar of wine, tomorrow morning, scoop out a small bowl of worm-extracted rice for each of us." She called her children "brother" and "sister"! That was the custom in the village. I did not know what "worm-extracted rice" was, why did we have to "worm-extracted rice". I tugged on her sleeve and asked: What do you mean by "worm-extracted rice"? Where are there worms?
My grandmother was good at poetry and folk songs. Whenever something was mentioned, she would immediately turn it into poetry. She said: “In April, we measure beans to cook sweet soup/ Celebrate the Duanwu Festival and return to May. Our ancestors taught us that on the 5th of May, we must exterminate insects. You can say exterminate or kill them. This is the day when the heat inside and outside of humans reaches its peak, my child. Therefore, insects also flourish and multiply wildly. Look at your bodies, prickly heat is growing like chicken pox. Then tomorrow, pimples will be everywhere… You must eat sticky rice wine, sour fruits, and bathe in aromatic leaf water to kill insects and maintain your health. Remember this so that you can follow that tradition in the future, my child!”
I didn’t understand everything she said, but early the next morning, she made each of us eat a small cup of sticky rice wine and chew a young lemon that was so sour that it sank into our teeth. After completing that procedure, I saw that my grandmother was very happy and at ease. She also drank a cup of wine and ate a young lemon.
Every year, on this day, my grandmother urged my mother to make wine and prepare some sour and astringent fruits for the whole family to kill insects. At noon, my mother cooked duck and prepared a feast to worship our ancestors. In the sweltering heat of May, everything we ate was delicious. The whole family was filled with laughter and happiness. My mother said that it was a day of family reunion.
When I grew up, my grandfather explained to me what the Duanwu Festival was. He studied Chinese literature during the feudal period and planned to take the imperial examinations, but he was not lucky enough to live a life of “putting down the brush pen and writing with a pencil”. He said that on this day in China, people commemorate a man who was good at poetry and literature and was an important mandarin during the reign of King Huai of Chu, named Qu Yuan. At first, he was very much favored by the king, but because of that favor, many people were jealous and tried to harm him, causing the King of Chu to suspect and hate him.
After the reign of King Huai, King Xiang, the son of King Huai of Chu ascended the throne. He also listened to the foolish ministers, hated Qu Yuan, and pushed him to Jiangnan, south of the Yangtze River. Qu Yuan committed suicide on the Miluo River on the 5th day of the 5th month, leaving behind in the world endless grief for countless virtuous and upright men. Therefore, the 5th day of the 5th month is the day the Chinese people remember Qu Yuan.
Vietnam has been influenced by Chinese culture for many years, and those rituals have also been integrated into social life, it is not clear since when. But with the development of history, Vietnamese people have had their own interpretations of the etiquette of the year. The Duanwu Festival is also known as the insect killing festival, the half-year festival, the Yangwu festival. Many customs on this day are performed to serve the reason for people's lives, their desires for life, humanity and spirit. My grandfather said that not only in my hometown, people often use henna leaves to dye their fingertips, but they are not allowed to dye their index fingers and toes. In the early morning, they eat wine and sour fruits to kill insects. After eating, children apply red huang on their fontanelles, chests, and navels to disinfect. At noon, after worshiping their grandparents and ancestors, people go pick leaves on the fifth day, picking any leaves they find, but try to pick up the leaves of the mill, guava leaves, and sage leaves... to bring home to dry, boil water, and drink for good health. My grandmother went to the field to cut some young rice, came back to thresh the grains, roasted them until they popped into cracks and flowers, put them in a pot of rainwater and boiled them thoroughly for her children and grandchildren to drink. The water had no taste, only the aroma of new rice stirred the soul, making people not forget the taste of their hometown every time the rice season came.
My family is very happy on the Duanwu Festival. My grandparents had many daughters, and according to tradition, on this day, each son-in-law must bring to his father-in-law a goose, or a duck, or a pair of ducks… depending on the conditions. My uncles and aunts brought ducks, some brought geese to their father-in-law. A hot Tet meal without a single breath of wind also cooled my grandparents' hearts.
Over time, we grew up and moved away from home. But every year on this day, no matter how far away the children and grandchildren were, they had to return home to reunite. My grandmother set that rule so that we would remember and preserve the family tradition. And, on the Duanwu Festival in 1998, the weather was as hot as fire, and there was a power outage. My mother’s entire rice yard was exposed to the sun. My grandmother was sick and lying in the house, feeling stuffy, waiting for us to come home for the festival. This year, no one in the family had time to “extract the worms” because she made an exception and waited for us to come home to perform the ritual, not necessarily in the early morning. But unexpectedly, the heat of May became unbearable for her, and she left us for the other world… She passed away on the Duanwu Festival, the anniversary of Qu Yuan’s death.
Now working in an air-conditioned room, eating and sleeping in an air-conditioned room… not many people pay attention to what this mid-year Tet is like, but I still miss it, my soul is burning with nostalgia for the distant memories of my childhood, of the Duanwu Festival, of things associated with my family life.
Jiangnan
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