Dragon Boat Festival
The Dragon Boat Festival is a popular and traditional festival celebrated on the 5'h day
of the 5'b lunar month by 27 nationalities in China. The festival is marked mainly by
holding dragon boat races and having the food called "zongzi" as the festival food,
According to surveys, the festival dates as far back as 5, 000 ye~s ago. Taking the
dragon as a most powerful god, the Chinese ancestors revered dragon as their totem of
the nation. Chinese worshipped their tribal chiefs as the incanlation of the dragon and
made the g,h of the fifth lunar month a day to hold the sacrificial ceremony for the
legendary animal, It is probably the real origin of the Dragon Boat Festival.
However, a legend behind it is widely spread as the origin of the festival. Qu Yuan
was a great patriotic poet and politician of the Sate of Chu. He failed to carry on the
political reform in his counlry. After he saw his country was conquered by the Qth State,
he drowned himself in the Miluo River ( in Hubei Province) on the 5'h day of the 5'h lunar
month in 278 BC. The local people boated down the river retrieving Qu Yuan's corpse
and were joined by fishermen when they came to the Dongting Lake. The dragon boat
race has been held to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival since then. The dragon boat race
is popular in southern China.
People hold the boat race differently from place to place. The festival celebrators hold a
grand opening ceremony before the race starts. During the ceremony, men in new clothes
walk around a boat three times to show worship of Lu Ban (the master craftsman) with
burning candles in their hands. Then they went to the Temple of Yu Yuan to pay their
respect to him carrying on their shoulders an irtlage of a dragon's head. They tie red
ribbons to the boats and pull them into the river for the race finally. During the boat race,
both banks are a hubbub of voices and a scene of fiultering colored banners.
The racers in a dragon boat include a commander, a drummer and some rowers in
some regions like Luzhou of Sichuan Province, The commander synchronizes rowing
movements by waving a pennant and singing a race song, while the dminmer beats a
drum to cheer the rowers on.
A big wooden boat carrying ducks is arranged lying at the finishing line, When the
race boat reach the line, ducks in the boat are released into the river. Amid thunderous
cheers of spectators on the banks, all the racers ~ry to catch the ducks in the river. In
Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, women racers are also possibly included. Racers
row race boats either by hand or by foot.
The custom of having zongzi ( a pyramid-shaped dumpling made of glutinous rice
wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves) is linked to a legend of Qu Yuan. it is said fishermen
on the Miluo River often presented Qu Yuan some zongzi and eggs because they revered
him. Some fishmen threw into the river the zongzi and eggs to give to Qu Yuan after his
death, After they failed to find his corpse, they wish the fish and shrimps in the river to
have these food and would not eat Qu Yua's corpse.
The day is a traditional Sanitation Festival. People clean their house, hang leaves of
mugwort or cattail on their doors. The custom hangs an interesting folk tale. A nation-
wide peasant uprising took place at the end of the Tang Dynasty (618--907). The leader
of the peasant uprising, Huang Chao, came to meet a woman holding a child about six
years old in her arm and taking a child of about three in her hand. She told the puzzled
commander the elder child in her arm is an orphan and the younger one is her ~wn child.
She would flee with the older alone at the sacrifice of her own soil in case they run into
Huang Chao's soldiers. Deeply moved, Huang promised he cherished all common
people. He pulled up two mugwort plants at the roadside and gave them to her. He asked her to tell all poor residents in the city to hang the mugwort plants on their door, and his
soldiers would not kill them. When Huang's army captured the city, it happened to be
during the Dragon Boat Festival. The custom of hanging mugwort plants on doors has
been kept in some areas.
During the festival, some people drink realgar alcohol ceremoniously for the
antibacterial and antifllngal properties. It is said that after the death of Qu Yuan, an old
practitioner of Chinese medicine poured some realgar wine into the Miluo River to make
drunk the dragon and other aquatic animals, so that they could not devour Qu's corpse.
Later people followed suit to worship Qu during the festival. Today, some people soak
realgar and calamus roots wine. They keep sunning the wine until the festival. Adults of
a family drink it as a way of prevention against vernrin. Children have some applied to
their noses and ears for the same purpose. The wine may also be sprinkled over the floors
for sterilization on the day.