NOTES ASoBaF: The Duanwu Festival

A Song of Blood and Fire: The Duanwu Festival

The Duanwu Festival, also often known as the Dragon Boat Festival, is a traditional holiday originating in China. It is also known as Zhongxiao Festival, commemorating fealty and filial piety. The Dragon Boat Festival is also a day for getting rid of disease and bad luck.

This year, El Fenix, the oldest watering hole and gaming parlor in Barrio Chino, Tijuana, will be hosting a celebration for the asian community of both Tijuana's Barrio Chino, and Prospect's Chinatown.

Half price drinks, complimentary Zongzi (rice dumpling), 5 bean congee, and xionghuang wine, and door gifts of calamus, Artemisia, pomegranate flowers, Chinese ixora and garlic along with 5-colored silk-threaded braids will add to the festive atmosphere! Place bets on the mini-dragon boat races or centipede and scorpion fights! Try your hand at competitive egg balancing or caligraphic spell-writing!

The bar and gaming parlor has been entirely decorated and dressed up for the festival! Paper dragons and demons and the like hang from the ceiling and the parlor's employees will dart in and out of the crowd with dragon and Zhong Kui (a vanquisher of ghosts and evil beings, and reputedly able to command 80,000 demons) and demon puppets, the dragons and Zhong Kui chasing off the demons. Patrons at the door will reach into grab bag and withdraw an item of either calamus, Artemisia, pomegranate flowers, Chinese ixora or garlic to use in warding off evil spirits and bad luck! Everyone will be given a 5-colored silk-threaded braid to wear around their wrist for protection from the bad luck and disease and demons.

STATION: Poisonous Beasts!
Arranged throughout the space will be carefully tended terrarium type displays, where guests can place wagers on small combats between all manner of poisonous critters - namely, between and among snakes, centipedes and scorpions! For those of a less violent bent, pictures of the five poisonous creatures have been pasted on the walls and guests can try their hand at throwing dart needles at them. For any young'uns in attendance, there are paper cuttings of the five creatures that can be wrapped these around the wrists of children to ward off bad luck and evil spirits.

STATION: Mini-Dragon Boat Races!
Arranged between the various spaces are long artificial "canals". The waterways run the length of the distance between the various corners of the room, each waterway labeled with one of the cardinal directions. In the artificial waterway will be mini-dragon boats, guided along by a tiny pole to which a long string is tethered that runs on a pulley from one end of the canal to the other. Guests can compete and try to guide their mini-dragon boat to the other end and secure the "body" of the drowned minister Qu Yuan while avoiding obstacles like angry fish and other demons of the river!

STATION: Egg Balancing!
Egg balancing is a traditional Chinese practice that has since been popularized in the United States. Although the irregular shape of eggs makes this somewhat difficult, eggshells typically have many imperfections such that the vast majority can be balanced with minimal effort. The trick is to do in an expeditious and aethetically pleasing way!

STATION: Spell Calligraphy!
Scrolls and inkpots and brushes will be available and set out at various stations throughout the space. Guests can try their hand at  drawing spells that ward off disease and bad luck and invoke health and auspicious blessings! Each station will have a specific spell assigned to it that guests can try and replicate or augment with their own flourish. But before an attempt can be made? A glass of strong, potent realgar wine must be imbibed, adding to the challenge! Realgar wine or xionghuang wine is a Chinese alcoholic drink that is made from Chinese yellow wine dosed with powdered realgar, a yellow-orange arsenic sulfide mineral. It is often used as a common antidote against poison in ancient Asia.