Last Wednesday was the Dragon Boat Festival here in China. This is only the second year that this has a been a national holiday but the festival has been celebrated for thousands of years.

Known here as Duanwu Jie, it falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar (approximately late May to mid-June). The holiday commemorates the death of Qu Yuan, a famous Chinese poet from the kingdom of Chu who lived during the Warring States Period.  Qu Yuan tried unsuccessfully to warn his king and countrymen against the expansionism of their Qin neighbours. When the Qin general Bai Qi, took the Chu capital, in 278 BC, Qu Yuan was supposedly so upset that he drowned himself in the Miluo River after writing the Lament for Ying. According to legend, packets of rice were thrown into the river to prevent fish from eating the poet’s body. Another version states that zongzi were given to placate a dragon that lived in the river.

Zongzi are triangles of glutinous rice stuffed with either sweet (red bean) or savoury (salty pork) fillings, wrapped in bamboo leaves and steamed. Today they are widely eaten in China and Asia around this time of year. Some are put in fancy packaging and given away as gifts.

Here is a report from Taipei about zongzi http://taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2010/06/17/2003475694

Fatburger opened in Beijing a little over a month ago. The name may not be familiar in the UK, if you happen to live on West Coast of the US then the name will be more recognisable. They have been around in the US for more than 50 years. They use fresh (not frozen) beef and cook their burgers to order.

For the Beijing branch beef is imported from Australia, ground on the premises and turned into big, juicy 8oz patties. Potatoes are brought in from the US to be transformed into either fat fries or skinny fries, although for me only fat fries will do. If you don’t fancy beef then you can get a grilled or deep fried chicken sandwich, or a bacon and egg sandwich , or a hot dog. Onion rings are made with real onions taste fab and are a must order.

This is not your run of the mill fast food joint. Burgers are cooked to order and brought to your table. Comfortable seating and great tunes make you want to linger and watch the world go by.

A regular combo meal, which consists of a single patty burger, fries and a soda will set you back RMB 60 with the options of cheese, bacon and a fried egg costing another RMB 5 each. For those with bigger appetites, a double patty burger (RMB 60) and a triple patty (yes, 24 oz!!) burger (RMB 80) are available.

http://www.fatburger.com/home/

Recently the cost of hourly parking was increased across the whole of Beijing. Parking charges were quadrupled! They went up from RMB 2 per hour (about 20p) to RMB 8 per hour (about 80p). By comparison with the UK, this is still tiny, but for Beijingers parking is now a significant cost.

The intended effect was to try and move people out of cars and onto public transport as traffic here is rapidly approaching grid lock. I have to say that traffic does seem to have eased slightly. Many of the car parks are now almost empty and traffic flow on the main roads is slightly easier. This has got to be a positive move for an increasingly choked up city.

We woke up this morning to a very eery, almost Martian sight. Beijing’s first dust storm in 5 or 6 years turned the sky orange. Millions of tons of sand  has blown in from the Gobi desert and is currently floating over the city turning everything shades of orange.

I took some pictures from our apartment.

I don’t plan on venturing out until the skies clear as I can already see thick layers of sand on the roads.

As many people know, we are about to enter the Chinese year of the Tiger. New Years Eve is tomorrow and the official public holiday starts tomorrow and finishes next Friday.

Spring Festival (so called because it heralds the start of Spring and the Lunar New Year) is the biggest and most important holiday in China. Traditionally it is time when families will get together and of course eat. In fact, this time of year is the biggest mass migration on the planet with somewhere in the region of 250 million people on the move throughout China. Plane tickets are in short supply and train and buses are packed as people head back home for the holidays. People have been traveling early to avoid the rush and all week Beijing has been getting quieter as people leave for home.

On New Years Eve families get together to eat and the main food eaten is jiao zi or dumplings (a bit like ravioli). They can be filled with just about anything  but usually they contain pork and spring onion or cabbage. The whole family will help make them and will spend all afternoon and into the evening mincing meat and filling these dumplings. Once made they are dropped into boiling water to cook for a few minutes. They are eaten hot dipped in dark vinegar mixed with garlic or ginger. Left overs are usually fried up the next day and are known as guo tie or pot stickers.

This year we will remain in Beijing and will be busy making jioazi come tomorrow night.

China seems to have been hit with similar amounts of snow and cold weather as the UK. On Sunday it snowed all day and put down about 6 to 8 inches of snow causing chaos on the roads. The temperature also plummeted to around -15! Most flights were cancelled or delayed. Apparently this is the worst winter weather in about 30 years. Things improved on Monday and by the afternoon everything was getting back to normal.

Today it is still cold (-5 down to -12 in the evening) but the skies are blue and the snow is rapidly disappearing.

Christmas and New Year in Beijing were very quiet. Coming back from the sunshine of South Africa on the 23rd and with Christmas Day being a normal working day, we missed the build up and the whole vibe you get around Christmas. Of course the kids loved the presents and having mum and dad back but it was not quite the same as Christmas’ past back in the UK.

Christmas lunch consisted of seafood (mackerel and clams) made by myself and shared with our staff (it was a working day). Not very traditional but very good non the less. Dinner was with some old friends at a very good Indian restaurant called the Tamarind. I would highly recommend the restaurant. Boxing Day was a bit more traditional when I cooked a ham and some of our English friends came over. I even managed to bring a Christmas pud over from Jo’burg. All very nice.

New Year’s Day is a holiday here but our New Year’s Eve was not very rock and roll. Dinner with the kids then an Indiana Jones marathon before phone calls on the stroke of midnight!