Various styles of Chinese Zongzi

Almost all Chinese festivals are linked to foods, and many have stories behind them. The origin of zongzi, rice dumplings wrapped in leaves, is most often linked to Qu Yuan.

He was a poet and a patriot who lived during the turbulent Warring States Period (475-221 BC). When the kingdom of Qin occupied his home, the kingdom of Chu, Qu threw himself into the Miluo River in protest.

It was said that the people of Chu dropped rice balls into the river to stop fish and shrimp from eating his body.

Later, a fisherman said he dreamed that Qu told him dragons had been eating most of the rice balls, so the people wrapped the rice balls with chinaberry leaves, and tied them up with colorful threads. They would row in the river and throw in the dumplings on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, the day Qu died.

The types of zongzi eaten in China are as varied as the many regional cuisines, with different shapes and fillings, although they are almost always made of sticky or glutinous rice.

北京粽子

In Beijing, they are most commonly stuffed with a candied or dried jujube, the dried Chinese red date. Some zongzi are left plain, to be dipped into sugar. Other places in North China replace glutinous rice with glutinous yellow millet, and these days, some folks replace white glutinous rice with purple rice.

北京粽子通常会以dried Chinese red date（红枣）作馅,有些粽子本身不加调料,吃的时候蘸糖吃.华北一些地方的人用glutinous yellow millet（黄黍）代替糯米来制作粽子,还有一些地方的人用的是紫米.