History of Bakcang Day

Hello, two days ago exactly on 30 June I just celebrated one of Chinese tradition which is Bakcang Day, so I wanna share a bit about the history of that day.

Bakcang Day in the West is known as Dragon Boat Festival or Dumpling Festival. Because, boat races are shaped like dragons and consumption of rice cakes are the two main elements of this festival. It can also be called Double Fifth Festival because it is held on 5-month day 5 Chinese lunar calendar. Sometimes also called the Extreme Festival Yang because according to Chinese metaphysics, in Hari Bakcang is the day where Yang energy comes out most strongly. Other titles for Bakcang Day are the Fifth Month Festival, Festival of the Fifth Day, Summer Festival, and Duan Wu Festival. The day of eating this Bakcang is related to the Chinese historical figure named Qu Yuan .

History of Qu Yuan

The most popular in Hari Bakcang is that day is closely related to a historical figure named Qu Yuan (340 BC - 278 BC) who is a Patriotic Scholar and minister in Chu country. Qu Yuan is favored because he is good at cooperating diplomatically with other kingdoms in order to fight the aggression of the Qin state. 

Until one day, he was vilified and thrown into exile after another corrupt minister convinced the king to believe in the false accusations against Qu Yuan. In 278 BC, Qu Yuan heard that Qin's army invaded Ying (the capital of Chu), he wrote the Lamentations poem for Ying, then he immersed himself in the Miluo River. The suicide ritual was carried out to protest the corruption that led to the fall of Chu state. 

According to the story, villagers were trying to find his body in the river by boat. They rowed the boat while hitting the drums to scare the fish and evil spirits so as not to disturb the body of Qu Yuan. They also throw rice wrappers into the river to eat fish and fish do not eat Qu Yuan's body. The throwing of the rice wrap was also intended as an offering for the Qu Yuan spirit. 

There is also another story which says that Qu Yuan appeared in the dreams of his friends and told them that he had committed suicide by drowning and they had to throw the rice wrapped in silk into the river to calm the dragon river. Thus, this led to the traditional racing of dragon boat races and eating rice cakes on the anniversary of Qu Yuan's death which falls every 5-month day 5 Chinese lunar calendar.

Tradition Eat Bakcang

The tradition of eating Bakcang is officially made as one of the activities in the Peh Cun festival. Based on historical records, in the time of Qun Chiu (722 - 481 S.M.), using leaves to wrap the rice beef-shaped horns also have a bamboo tube filled with rice closed tightly and baked until cooked, called "Bakcang Tabung". This is arguably the forerunner of Bacang. The shape of the vessel is actually also diverse and what we see now is just one of many shapes and types of Bakcang earlier. 

In Taiwan, in the latter days of the Ming Dynasty, the form of a shake brought by the migrants from Fujian is spiraled, somewhat with the triangular prisms we see today. The filling of  Bakcang also various and not just meat. There are filled with vegetables, some are made small but without the filling that are then eaten together with serikaya jam or sweet sugar. On the 5th (Chinese Lunar Calendar), during the summer eating cake for cooling the body that made from rice, wrapped in leaves and cooked to mature, the fragrance smells unique, after eating it can neutralize the heat and lower the fire properties in the body, Digestion, indeed a season-appropriate food. At that time, people changed the dry season and put the light and cool. Judging from the tradition of dressing and eating, Duan Wu (Bakacang) day is considered to have a close relationship with the arrival of the dry season, of course there is also truth.