Today, Friday, June 3, is the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, so it’s Dragon Boat Festival! And we have a day off to celebrate, yippee! The dragon boats were racing today in Taipei – what I like better is the large dragon made from rice plants growing along the river in Guandu, Taipei ~ it’s quite amazing….

It’s also the Queen’s Jubilee in the UK ~ but here in Taiwan we’re celebrating Dragon Boat Festival, mostly by eating and giving zongzi in large quantities. Zongzi are sticky rice dumplings made in a triangular shape, with a variety of fillings, meat, eggs, peanuts, etc and steamed or boiled, depending on where the zongzi are from. They’re wrapped in bamboo leaves, and tied up in string, served warm…

Our church and chaplaincy here at St. John’s University and Advent Church have been giving out 3 zongzi to each of our students who receive meal coupons. Here’s our team busy packing them up a few days ago…

Because the rice is sticky and glutinous, people say not to eat too many at once! One is enough, and they’re really delish!

The other activities today are temple parades and bai-bai offerings at family shrines, and balancing eggs at 12 noon. Check out the traditions in this article here. Lots of activities are of course canceled due to the pandemic. We’re in the middle of a big surge of Omicron that took off just after Easter. This time, the government has decided not to lock down but instead to open up, and to use this as a way of moving from a policy of Zero-Covid, which we’ve been following until now, to Living with Covid. For about the last 2 weeks, we’ve had about 80,000 – 90,000 new cases every day (though with lower numbers recorded every weekend), with 90-145 deaths each day. The numbers are expected to peak soon – actually they’re already going down in Taipei, but still going up in the south. Life is still going along, work continues for most people as normal, but schools have been closed for a week or more, set to reopen in the next week. Restaurants have been badly hit, with far fewer people eating out, and the Metro is on a reduced service. Good job summer is coming, and we can get out and about more. The plum rainy season is still with us, once it’s over, then temperatures are set to rise, and summer will officially be here. It’s gonna be hot in those facemasks! Get ready everyone, things are heating up!