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International Students Get to Feel the Dragon Boat Festival

<p><font face="Arial">By Diana Meng<br /> Campus Reporter</font></p> <p><font face="Arial">International students experienced and got to know more about the Dragon Festival as they participated in all related activities organized by the Office of International Affairs (OIA) at the dorm cafeteria today.</font></p> <p><font face="Arial">OIA invited these international students to join the rice dumplings in bamboo leaves (zhnogzi) wrapping contest, the egg-standing activity and a demonstration of dragon boat racing.</font></p> <p><font face="Arial">&quot;I have never wrapped a zhnogzi myself.&nbsp; This is the first time, a fun one,&rdquo; said Maria Chen (陳美琳), a Chinese-Indian sophomore from the Department of Chinese.</font></p> <p><font face="Arial">Chen said that the same holiday is also celebrated by Chinese descendants in India, only with a different name &ndash; the Mango Festival, since it is also the mango season in India.</font></p> <p><font face="Arial">When told that whoever stood the eggs would have good luck for the upcoming year, Piero Costa, an Italian graduate student from the Institute of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language, said that the egg-standing activity would remind him of Easter.</font></p> <p><font face="Arial">In addition to egg-standing, Piero is also an experienced dragon boatman that he was introducing the game to his fellow international students at the scene with video clips of previous match-ups that he was involved.</font></p> <p><font face="Arial">&quot;I love it,&rdquo; he said.&nbsp; &ldquo;I joined the annual Taipei International Dragon Boat Festival for the past two years and I am going to do it again this year.&rdquo;</font></p> <p><font face="Arial"><br /> </font>&nbsp;</p>