Zongzi School (粽子学校)

liuzhou · June 9, 2021

Today I went to school.

I was double booked. One invitation came from an old friend, who teaches in the local vocational school. They run, among other courses, a Chinese language course for foreign students. I was invited to witness a “special lesson”.

The second invitation came from some friends in the local government, whom I often work with, and who mainly wanted me to be the semi-official photographer at an “interesting event”.

Fortunately my two invitations were to the same event.

Saturday will be 端午节 (duān wǔ jié), the Duanwu festival, also know as “The Dragon Boat Festival”.

I won’t repeat the history and the fables it arises from, but you can be sure they are mostly nonsense. WikiSometimesRight has a reasonably accurate version of the unreasonable story. By the way, the Kingdom of Chu, to which the article refers is modern-day Sichuan. I guess they didn’t know.

Anyway, the important thing to do at Duanwu is to make and/or eat 粽子 (zòng zi), which are a kind of dumpling made by mixing glutinous rice with various fillings and wrapping them in bamboo leaves before boiling or steaming them. The actual fillings vary by region. Northern China tends to like sweet fillings whereas, down here in the south, we are sweet enough, so prefer to mix the rice with mung beans, barbecued pork and chestnuts.

So the event was intended to show the few foreigners in town how to assemble these critters. It was held in what is really a bakery shop, but styles itself a baking museum. True they do have some old stuff on display, but are just one of 54 places styling themselves museums – we have a luosifen museum, a baijiu museum, a coffee museum, a mahogany museum, a bamboo museum, a ticket museum etc., etc. I’m just waiting for them to open a museum museum.

So here are a few images. Starting with the building and some of the museum exhibits.

Entrance

Exterior

Interior 1

Mooncake Moulds

and more

WeddingTableau

Old Stuff

more soon

Edited June 9, 2021 by liuzhou (log)

liuzhou · June 9, 2021

Class begins! Pay attention!

After being introduced to the dark arts of Chinese bakery and a "history" of zongzi and the asociated festival, it was time to get serious. This woman came to educate us in the proper procedure by proceeding to introduce the ingredients and how to wrap them together.

Bamboo Leaves

Roast Pork

Cooked Beans

Glutinous Rice

The Final Product

Now it was the students' turn. A few other passing foreigners, teacher and my friends from government joined in.

liuzhou · June 9, 2021

Everyone was supplied with a red hat and apron and sent to wash their hands. Bowls of essential ingredients and bamboo leaves were laid out and everyone got stuck in.