Conversation: This is called Babaofan

How time flies! It seems like I've just arrived in Shanghai but it's already time to head back to Beijing. Our trip is in haste this time, and I didn't get to see as much here as I would have liked to. I can't help feeling like I have to leave Shanghai just as I was beginning to love it here.

You look like you don't want to leave. We don't have a choice. We will have to come back to Shanghai another time to see the rest of the places. The drinks and snack are coming, put down your tray table.

Look at this snack. We have Zongzi, Chunjuan, and a bowl of colorful rice. What is this?

This is called Babaofan, or eight-treasure glutinous rice pudding. It is a traditional Chinese dessert made of steamed mound of glutinous rice mainly stuffed with sweet adzuki bean paste. On the top surface of the mound there are eight varieties of sugar preserves, including tangerine skin, plums, red jujubes, lotus seeds, raisins, pearl barley, dried longan and walnuts. Babaofan symbolizes wealth, health and fortune, and is usually shared by all the people at reunion dinners.

Then I would like to have some. I hope it will bring me good luck in the future.

No problem. You can also have mine. I like Zongzi better than Babaofan.

By the way, you didn't tell me the origin of Zongzi. What is it?

Zongzi is a very popular dish to eat during the Dragon Boat festival. Have you ever heard of Qu Yuan? He was a loyal and highly respected minister that served the King of Chu during the Warring States Period. But over time, he was framed up by the other court officials and was banished from Chu by the King. Several years later, the capital of Chu was defeated by the army of Qin. Qu Yuan felt it was hopeless to save his country, therefore he drowned himself in the Milo River at the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. Knowing that Qu Yuan was a righteous man, the people of Chu rushed to the river and desperately searched the waters in their boats looking for Qu Yuan, but they found nothing. People have no choice but throw cooked rice wrapped in bamboo leaves into Milo river in hope that Qu Yuan's body would not be eaten by the fish. Subsequently, the fifth day of the fifth lunar month was called Dragon Boat Festival to commemorate the people's attempt at rescuing Qu Yuan, while those cooked rice wrapped in bam