The Dragon Boat Festival is one of the grandest traditional festivals celebrated by Chinese people. It is also called Duanwu-Jie or Chinese Rice-Pudding Festival.
The Dragon Boat Festival originated from a religious rite of worshiping dragons. According to legend, dragons served as gods of water. The dragons lived in rivers, lakes and seas, taking charge of bringing rain to farms. On a certain day before the monsoon, people performed ceremonies by rivers or lakes, and offered sacrifices to the dragons. They believed that their deep reverence for the dragons would be repaid with timely rain and a good harvest.
The festival is also dedicated to Qu Yuan(340B.C.-278B.C.), a patriotic poet of the Chu State. During the Warring States Period(475B.C.-221B.C), the Qin was the strongest one of the vassal states. The kings of the Qin were attempting to annex the other weaker states and unify the whole China. They waged a series of wars against its neighbouring states. One of the states under attack was the Chu. Qu Yuan served as a senior official of the Chu State. He urged his king to make an alliance with other states which were attacked by the Qin. However, he failed and was forced to live in exile. When the great patriot was told that his motherland was conquered by the Qin’s army, he felt extremely upset and drowned himself in the Miluo River. As soon as locals heard that Qu Yuan committed suicide, they dashed to the river, beating drums and gongs with a purpose of scaring fish away from his body. Some boatmen raced their boats up and down the river to search for the suicide. Unfortunately, all their efforts were in vain. They could not take the patriot back. In order to avoid Qu Yuan’s body being eaten by hungry fish, people rowed boats to scare the fish away and threw glutinous rice puddings into the river. The custom of eating the glutinous rice puddings and the dragon boat race has its roots in the legend of Qu Yuan.
The Dragon Boat Festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of each lunar year. That is the date when Qu Yuan passed away. (The Dragon Boat Festival falls on the anniversary of Qu Yuan’s death, the fifth day of the fifth month of each lunar year.) Besides eating glutinous rice puddings and attending dragon boat races, Chinese people also celebrate the festival through making perfume pouches, hanging herbs on doors, having a bath with herbal remedies, and drinking realgar liquor. The purpose of all the practices is to avoid insect bites and drive evil spirits away. Realgar is a red mineral containing arsenic sulphide. According to Chinese traditional pharmacy, the realgar is poisonous and the realgar liquor is for external use only.
Author: Tina Luo
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