Here's How Many Calories A Bak Zhang Has - And Other Things You Should Know About Dragon Boat Festival

More than 2,000 years ago, in the year 278BC, a patriotic official from China called Qu Yuan took his own life by drowning in the river. Legend has it that villagers rushed out in boats to find the well-loved official. When they could not locate his body, they threw sticky rice balls into the river so that fish would eat those instead of his body, giving rise to the Dragon Boat Festival. It falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, ie. on June 18 this year. Scroll down for more intriguing facts on the annual event.

276

How much calories a typical bak zhang has, equivalent to about three pieces of goreng pisang. The treat consists of 10g of fat, 8g of protein and a whopping 486mg of sodium.

1,316kg

Weight of the world’s largest bak zhang, made in 2008 in Taiwan. The giant rice dumpling was made out of a staggering 840kg of rice, 210kg of chicken and pork, 60kg of prawns and 38,000 bamboo leaves.

631

How many rice dumplings were made in an hour by 20 women in Hainan, China, last year, setting a Guinness World Record. That’s about 31 per person per hour.

RMB8 (S$1.70)

How much a KFC glutinous rice dumpling in Shanghai cost. It was released to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival last year. The city also saw 7-Eleven and Starbucks stores sell their own iterations at RMB15 and RMB20 respectively.

266km

The longest distance covered by dragonboat in relay within 24 hours, achieved by a Spanish dragonboat team last year. The gruelling feat involved 161 rowers from seven countries, and a mind-numbing 190 laps around a 1.4km circuit.