The Chinese Dragon Boat Festival is a significant holiday celebrated in China and the one with the longest history. It is held in summer, and since this is a time when diseases spread most easily, the Dragon Boat Festival began as an occasion for driving off evil spirits and disease, and for finding peace in one’s life
The Chinese Dragon Boat Festival is also known as Duan Wu Festival in China.
There are many quaint traditions associated with the festival. The different practices include hanging healthy herbs on the front door, drinking nutritious conditions, and displaying portraits of evil’s nemesis, Chung Kuei. According to custom, if one manages to stand an egg on its end at exactly 12:00 noon, the following year will be a lucky one!
The festival was enriched by the legends of the patriot Chu Yuan. The boat races during the Dragon Boat Festival are a symbolic attempt to rescue the patriotic poet Chu Yuan who drowned on the day of the fifth lunar month in 277 B.C. Chinese citizens now throw bamboo leaves filled with cooked rice into the water, so that the fish can eat the rice instead of the poet. Later on, turned into the custom of eating Tzung Tzu and rice dumplings.
The Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated by boat races in the shape of dragons. These boats are long and narrow, and up to eighty rowers paddle together. Competing teams row their boats forward to a drumbeat, racing to reach the finishing point first. The races are noisy, exciting, and great fun for both the spectators and the participants.
Dragon Boat Festival 2022
The next Dragon Boat Festival will be celebrated on June 3, 2022. Being a UNESCO intangible heritage, Chinese communities and people from all over the world celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival.
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