端午節 A Story of Kindness

If language is a barrier. If culture is a barrier. Kindness is not yet attained. Even the dumb or those who has speaking inability, can attain kindness. Kindness is from the heart and kindness is human-heartedness. I have never been to watch a dragon race until last Sunday 17 June 2012. Although, the dragon boat race is a yearly event on the River of Melaka, I have not look forward to join the crowd.


But things have changed, the River of Melaka has changed from the early years since its' founding, and the river has become a part of the Melaka State's transformation. 


The avenue for me to write from the heart for the past decades is limited. Limitation changed to borderless practically overnight when we reached the new millennium. Governments are investing in the continuous upgrading of the internet technology to enable their citizens to keep up with time.




Timeline of the Melaka River or more popularly in Asia, Sungai Melaka, is expanding, come the middle of 2013 or early 2014, the boats are there to take you to the hub of the heritage city's land transportation located at Sentral Melaka. We know that the river Nile is 6,825 km in Africa but we also know that the West and the East once converge on the Sungai Melaka. 338 years to 2400 to make a thousand years since 1400, I am sure that the Sungai Melaka will glow, radiate and shine brighter as the 'Venice of the East'.


The shine would be as brighter as the story of ancient kindness as described in the China-originated  端午節.

In the Shang Dynasty, the ruler not only cared deeply for his people but also showed humanity even to the animals. The Greater China of today continue to show humanity to animals too and even declared the pandas as national treasure.

Shang Tang chided a lad for trapping birds selfishly for money and suggested him to be moderate in his trappings so as to allow the birds to breed and flourish except for those birds which have lost their sense of direction. The people of imperial China showed Shang Tang greater support when they heard the story and became impressed with his kind and noble leadership. In ancient times, man is thoughtful not only to man alone but his thoughtfulness is also extend to the animals. In future times, man shall continue this thoughtfulness.

Qu Yuan sadly drowned himself in the Miluo River, had wrote many poems during his exile when he was banished by the Zhou Dynasty. People admired him, and the whole community unite and got the banana trees stem shredded into strong dried strings. They steamed hand-picked glutinous rice. Then they conveniently gathered bamboo leaves. Once the ingredients are ready, they stuffed the ingredients in the centre of the steamed-cook glutinous rice wrapped with bamboo leaves in a triangular shaped tied with the dried banana-stem strings. The whole community threw their ready zongzi into the river for the sake of Qu Yuan. This story inspire the thought of kindness and power our hearts to beat on love for the next 364 days.

The Sungai Melaka's heritage remain while it is gaining shine and if I wore a lazy view last Sunday, I would not be inspired to write this blog post. I would like to thank 3 Multi Media University students for their brief elaboration of the Duanwu Festival and the Dragon Boat Race.


The Chief Minister, Mohd Ali Rustam is transforming the Sungai Melaka to greater past and to greater future.