Singapore Dragon Boat Festival: Dumplings & Racing

The Dragon Boat Festival is one of the most sensory events in Singapore's annual calendar — not because of any large-scale public spectacle, but because of the smell of bamboo leaves steaming in every home and in every wet market across the island for two weeks each May or June. Bak zhang preparation is among the most labour-intensive domestic cooking in Singapore's Chinese food culture. It is also among the most social — traditionally a family activity spread over a full morning, involving multiple generations, dozens of ingredients, and the particular skill of folding the bamboo leaf into a watertight cone before filling and tying.

Bak Zhang — The Full Landscape

Singapore's bak zhang tradition has more variety than most visitors expect. The major styles:

Hokkien bak zhang — the most common in Singapore, with braised pork belly, salted egg yolk, dried shiitake mushrooms, dried chestnuts, and dried shrimp in a glutinous rice body. Richly savoury, oily in the best way, substantial.

Nyonya zhang — the Peranakan version, with blue-tinted rice (from the butterfly pea flower) and a filling of pork belly cooked with candied winter melon, coriander, and sometimes candied melon. The flavour is more complex and sweeter than the Hokkien version. Bengawan Solo's Nyonya zhang is the reference version in Singapore.

Teochew zhang — drier and less fatty, with peanuts, dried shrimp, and preserved vegetables. Less popular commercially but fiercely loved by Teochew families who grew up eating it.

Alkaline zhang (kee zhang / gan sui zhang) — plain yellow glutinous rice with no savoury filling, eaten with kaya or sugar. The simplest version and the one most children encounter first.

Where to Buy

Bengawan Solo — multiple outlets islandwide, the most accessible premium option. Book ahead for larger quantities in the two weeks before the festival.

Old Airport Road Food Centre — several stalls offer freshly made bak zhang during the festival period, typically from a week before until the festival date. The local hawker guide covers Old Airport Road in detail.

Chinatown Complex — the market level of Chinatown Complex has multiple stalls selling bak zhang with queues that confirm their quality.

Geylang Serai Market — the Malay market carries its own pulut panggang (grilled glutinous rice in banana leaf) as a parallel festival food, worth trying alongside the Chinese versions.

Dragon Boat Racing in Singapore

Singapore's dragon boat racing community is one of the most active in Asia. The Singapore Dragon Boat Federation organises competitive events at Marina Bay, Bedok Reservoir, and Kallang Basin throughout the year, with the festival period bringing the most community-focused events. The races — teams of 20 paddlers in narrow wooden boats, with a drummer setting the stroke cadence — are free to watch from the reservoir banks and are genuinely exciting as a live spectacle even without any prior knowledge of the sport.

Making Bak Zhang at Home

If you are in Singapore for an extended stay and have access to a kitchen, making bak zhang is a legitimate experience to attempt. The ingredients — glutinous rice, dried bamboo leaves, braised pork, dried mushrooms, dried shrimp, chestnuts, salted egg — are all available at any FairPrice or wet market. The technique (soaking the rice overnight, preparing the filling, folding the leaf into a cone, filling, folding the top closed, tying with raffia or twine, then steaming for 45 minutes to two hours) takes a full morning and rewards it. The bamboo leaf fragrance that permeates the kitchen is the most specific smell of this festival — unmistakable and deeply nostalgic for Singapore Chinese of every generation.