Finland Times

     Saturday was the Dragon Boat Festival, also known as Duanwu, celebrated annually on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, which falls on June 20 this year.

     The Dragon Boat Festival has many customs, including dragon boat racing and eating "zongzi," a glutinous rice dumpling wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves, to commemorate the death of Qu Yuan, a noble of Chu State which included most of the territory of Hunan and Hubei during the Warring States period (475 B.C.-221 B.C.). Qu Yuan was one of the earliest Chinese great poets.

     To celebrate the opening of the Hunan Week and also the Dragon Boat Festival, chefs who came from China with the Hunan delegation at the China Pavilion cooked and sent zongzi to other national pavilions and international organizations, and offered them to the Expo visitors.

     Only a few meters away, a giant Italian pizza nearly 1.6 km long was cut into thousands of slices and distributed to a number of amused Expo visitors as well as to charity associations which donated them to people in need, in line with the Expo's team of "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life."

     The pizza on Saturday was awarded the Guinness World Records of longest pizza in the world. Made exclusively with Italian ingredients, it was prepared by more than 80 pizza makers during last night with 2.5 tonnes of dough, 1.5 tonnes of tomato sauce, 1.7 tonnes of mozzarella and 150 liters of olive oil.

     Besides being both offered at the world exposition on Saturday and besides being both delicious, the Chinese zongzi and the Italian pizza have another characteristic in common: the Dragon Boat Festival has been listed in the UNESCO World Intangible Cultural Heritage List, while the Italian pizza's art has also presented its candidacy in the same list.

     In fact Saturday's record-breaking can help the candidacy of Italian pizza, Giuseppe Sala, Sole Commissioner of the Italian Government for Expo Milano 2015, said.

     "The candidacy is not as much on pizza but also on the capacity to make a pizza, thus on the work of people, on the work of pizza chefs ... this shows that beyond pizza there are the work and the Italian craftsmanship, which is one of Italy's treasures," he explained in an interview with Xinhua.

     Sala also highlighted China's "right choice to bring its main provinces to the Expo."

     "We still have four and a half months ahead and it is important that Italians make acquainted not only with China, because it is a great country, but especially with Chinese provinces in their diversity," he stressed.

     Dario Bordet, Director of Italian magazine Italia da Gustare (Italy to Taste), while attending the record-breaking ceremony said he was eager to also taste the Chinese zongzi.

     "Of course I know the Italian food, but I must say that I was strongly impressed by the presentation of Hunan province," he told Xinhua.

     Bordet said he especially appreciated the musical tradition and the other many cultural elements brought by the Hunan delegation to Expo Milano 2015. Zongzi was one of these elements.

     "And at the same time we are here with the pizza record, all of this really is a jubilation," he highlighted.

     In fact, Bordet told Xinhua, tasting the foods that come from every part of the world is in the spirit of Expo.

     "We are talking about China's millenary history and great value. Integration between Italians and Chinese is continuously growing as well as the two countries' taste for the respective unique cuisines in the world," he concluded.