Zhao Hun

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Zhao Hun (Chinese: 招魂; Pinyin: Zhāo Hún) is a poem by Qu Yuan, and collected in the Chu Ci (楚辭 Songs of Chu, sometimes Songs of the South). The title is translated as Summons of the Soul, or Summoning of the Soul.

In Chinese tradition, the Dragon Boat Races originated in the 3rd century B.C., following the death of the poet/philosopher Ch'ü Yuan. In this poem, food becomes a worldly joy, and this excerpt from The Great Summons describes a feast which can almost be appreciated today. Ch'ü Yuan was on the verge of suicide for political reasons, and wrote The Great Summons to persuade himself to cling to life.

O Soul come back to joys beyond all telling! Where thirty cubits high at harvest time The corn is stacked; Where pies are cooked of millet and bearded maize. Guests watch the steaming bowls And sniff the pungency of peppered herbs. The cunning cook adds slices of bird-flesh, Pigeon and yellow heron and black crane. They taste the badget-stew. O Soul come back to feed on foods you love!

Next are brought Fresh turtle, and sweet chicken cooked with cheese Pressed by the men of Ch'ü. And flesh of whelps floating in liver sauce With salad of minced radishes in brine; All served with that hot spice of southernwood The land of Wu supplies. O Soul come back to choose the meats you love!

Roasted daw, steamed widgeon and grilled quail-- On every fowl they fare. Boiled perch and sparrow broth-- in each preserved The separate flavor that is most its own. O Soul come back to where such dainties wait!

Later, Ch'u did drown himself. His friends set out in many boats to find his body, and scattered rice into the water to feed the fish. The Chinese Dragon Boat Races, held in June in Hong Kong and many other cities with large Chinese populations, commemorate this event. The Chinese prepare a dish composed of meat or bean paste and rice, wrapped in bamboo leaves, tied with string and steamed, in lieu of food given to fishes so they would not dine on poet Ch'u Yuan.