As APEC China 2026 is set to kick off in Shenzhen, Shenzhen Press Group co-initiates the project Living Heritage / Eastbound Learner, along with College of International Exchange SZU and SZU Library.

Vietnamese+ICH=?

How do sea uechin zongzi and Chinese culture

go global?

FIRST STOP!

Dragon Boat Festival Special!!!

We invited an Vietnamese student

from the College of International Exchange SZU

Phan Thao Nguyen

to Nan'ao ICH workshop

and learned how to make sea urchin zongzi

from Zhangmei Zhang

which is the 4th-generation inheritor

Afraid of sea urchin?

Unable to tie tightly?

Let’s see

how Phan Thao Nguyen learned and made

a perfect sea urchin zongzi

APECpedia

The Dragon Boat Festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, in memory of Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet. After he drowned himself, locals rowed boats searching for him and threw zongzi into the river protecting him from fishes. Nowadays, traditional customs in different places in China include dragon boat races, making zongzi, grabbing ducks, hanging mugwort, wearing colorful bracelets and drinking realgar wine, all wishing for health and safety.

Sea urchin zongzi is a unique delicacy of the Tanka people in Nan'ao and has a history of over 200 years. As Nan'ao is surrounded by mountains and the sea, sea urchins abound. Therefore, one of its local proverb goes continuously——No money to buy eggs but have sea urchins for every meal. Usually, residents utilize purple sea urchins to make zongzi, along with glutinous rice, pork belly, shrimp, dried scallops, abalone and some fresh fillings, wrapped with Thysanolaena latifolia leaves to make a rectangle-like zongzi. As time goes by, sea urchin zongzi became the specialty of Nan’ao and it was elevated from a district-level to a city-level intangible cultural heritage in 2021. In the same year, the specialty ranked in the No.1 spot on the “Shenzhen companion gifts” list.

Zhangmei Zhang, known as the ‘Queen of Sea urchins’, is the 4th-generation inheritor of sea urchin zongzi cooking techniques. As the eldest daughter in her family, she began to learn about sea urchin zongzi from her grandmother when she was seven or eight years old. In 2021, Zhangmei’s sea urchin zongzi cooking techniques were recognized as a city-level intangible cultural heritage. In 2023, her workshop was awarded the plaque for an "Intangible Cultural Heritage Workshop".

Source: Shenzhen Special Zone Daily