International Student Program

The Dragon Boat Festival (Chinese Halloween) is a traditional festival in China. It is on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar every year. In China, it was originally a festival to commemorate Yuan Qu, a famous poet during the Warring States period in China. He suicided on that day after he was heart-broken due to his country was taken over by another country. People tried to find his dead body in the rive with boats and fed the fish with the rice puddings to prevent the dead body of the poet been eaten by the fish. That’s where the dragon boat competition and making rice puddings came from. 

The international students celebrated the festival by eating the sticky rice dumplings and making a clay dragon in the library this year. All of them were excited to participate in the activity and enjoyed it very much. This is a

 fantastic opportunity to know another culture and tradition and integrate students from different backgrounds. 

                                                                                      ----Heidi LUO, International Program Coordinator