Dragons

June 18, 2018

So June 17 was already over (effect of traveling east) by the time we reached Xiamen, China. Today is my first day here. I thought of Zubin all of last evening and night. I couldn’t believe that I am traveling without him. That he will never again go anywhere with me – ever. My brain shuts itself when I think like that. So mostly I try to stay numb. I headed down to breakfast at Sheraton where I will be staying for the trip (lavish! I know. Benefits of being a corporate widow. Plus they give good discounts for frequent business travelers – thanks to my husband.) Zubin loved big breakfast buffets. You wouldn’t have been able to tell because he wasn’t a big eater. But give him some chicken nuggets, a petit chocolate chip muffin and cereal, and he was a happy camper. He mostly loved the pomp and show of these expansive spreads. Today is also Dragon festival in China. Zubin loved dragons. Not hard to imagine since they are the stuff that many little boys’ dreams are made of. He loved the legend and lore of it. He couldn’t get enough of dragon stories. Just for Zubin’s sake, I asked our concierge about the legend behind Dragon festival.

Legend goes (in a very condensed version) that there was a patriot and poet who lived around 300 BC in the state of Chu. His name was Qu Yuan. He was a major advisor to the King in the war among the seven states of Chu, Han, Qi, Qin, Wei, Yan and Zhao.  However his political opponents slandered him and got him exiled. The Kingdom of Chu subsequently lost to the state of Qin. Qu Yuan was so depressed by this defeat that he drowned himself in a river. The local people were very sad at his death and they rowed into the river and threw lumps of rice to feed the fish so that they would not eat his body. Resulting local traditions include dragon boat racing and eating sticky rice dumplings called zongzi. I think Zubin would have enjoyed this story – particularly the part about feeding the fish. In the evening we got invited to a friend’s home for dinner and got to eat some zongzi.

Between the jet lag due to the 15 hour time difference and the dinner with our friend’s family, I set myself a modest goal for today. I am working on finishing Rachael’s book and leaving the writing for tomorrow. I love you Zubin. I am thinking of you baby.