Know more about the upcoming Dragon Boat Festival (Shenzhen)

Get to know the traditional Chinese festivals should be one of the most exciting things to know Chinese culture as well as local customs better.
The Dragon Boat Festival is one of the significant holidays in Chinese history. Now let’s take some time to know something about this traditional Chinese festival. Dragon Boat Festival is also called DuanWu Jie , occurring on the 5th day of May in lunar calendar . The tradition of celebration in this day is eating “Zongzi “ which is made of sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves. In addition, people perform Dragon Boat Race for fun.
Then how was this festival orgin? It is said that Dragon Boat Festival is to honor a patriotic but unappreciated man named Qu Yuan.
In the Warring States Period, Qu Yuan was a high rank official in the state of Chu. During his tenure, he implemented a great many reforms to greatly enhance the power of Chu. Nevertheless, Qu Yuan still couldn’t escape the miserable destiny just the same as most loyal men in Chinese history. The king fell under the influence of other corrupt, jealous ministers who slandered Qu Yuan and banished his most loyal counselors. And then he came back his home town. The ambitious politician gradually became a legendary poet who spent much of his time to collect legends and folk to create poetry for expressing fervent love for his state. Unfortunately, the State of Chu was finally eliminated, and Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowning himself in Miluo River on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month.
When people knew about it , a lot of people paddled their boat to search Qu Yuan’s Body, and it is also the origin of Dragon Boat race. Besides, the local people also dropped sticky rice triangles called Zongzi into the river. They said if the fishes were full, they would not eat Qu yuan’s body. And then Zongzi became a food which we eat on every Dragon boat day.
In the year of Protected content , the Dragon Boat Festival was announced as a public holiday by the Chinese government, so on that day, the family always get together to eat Zongzi, drink realgar wine and watch the dragon boat race.
Hope you will like this article and wish you enjoy the Dragon Boat Festival in China.