The only reason I know today is Dragon Boat Festival Day is because my mother gave me a calendar that superimposes the Chinese lunar calendar over the Western calendar, and then she’d gone on various days and drawn little pictures of what the day is. For today, she drew little Chinese “dzong zi” (sticky rice with meat and veggies wrapped and steamed in a bamboo leaf) in the square. True to form, Mr. W and I are gonna have a pork and mushroom dzong zi each for lunch today.

My mommy’s so cute. Unfortunately, her cuteness is a necessity driven by the shameful fact that I’m nearly illiterate in Chinese so she needs to illustrate instead of deferring to the preprinted holidays designated in Chinese on the calendar.