That’s right, you get two holidays for the price of one this Wednesday. Across China, the people are celebrating Dragon Boat Festival (端午节 duānwǔjié) with glutinous rice snacks known as zòngzi (粽子). For the poet in us, it’s a day to mourn the death of Qū Yuán (屈原).

As it follows the lunar calendar, Dragon Boat Festival falls on another important literary holiday this year: Bloomsday. It’s a day to commemorate James Joyce’s (詹姆斯 乔伊斯 zhānmǔsī qiáoyīsī) novel Ulysses (尤利西斯 Yóulìsàisī). There will be plenty of readings of the novel around the world–there’s even a Yiddish reading of it in New York. For the most ambitious of us, there is a Chinese translation of Ulysses (no word on if there’s a public reading of the Chinese version anywhere).

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