Introduction: Chinese Dragon Boat Festival is much famous. Dragon Boat Festival is a holiday for the public. It’s every day off for the people, and faculties and most businesses are closed.
Dragon Boat festival may be an ancient Chinese holiday celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month–which this year is one the day.
History of the Dragon Boat Festival
The Dragon Boat Festival is an ancient Chinese holiday that has been around in numerous forms for thousands of years. Its current iteration is a merger of multiple different festivals and traditions. Two prevailing stories are usually cited to clarify the origin of this old holiday.
Suicide of Qu Yuan: Chinese Dragon Boat Festival
In the modern world, the foremost well-liked story explaining the reason for the Dragon Boat festival concerns the death of Qu Yuan, an author of the war-ridden States (approximately 475 to 221 BC).
At the time, the Chinese intelligentsia had expected to work in government, and Qu Yuan was no different. He served reliably as a government official within the State of Chu a few times. Once being slandered by another official, he was sent into exile.
Qu Yuan productively spent his exile, writing several works of poetry; his mind was troubled. The State of Chu wasn’t doing well politically, and news of its numerous defeats at the hands of competitor states sent Qu Yuan into an extreme depression.
Further, his despair in the face of the political scenario drove him to kill himself by drowning in Hunan Province’s Miluo stream.
During his exile, Qu Yuan became quite popular among the individuals. Legend has it that after they accomplished that he was attempting to drown himself, the group hurried in boats to the center of the stream to save lots of him or retrieve his body.
Unable to search for him and distressed that fish would eat his body, they threw balls of sticky rice into the stream, hoping that the fish would eat the rice over Qu Yuan.
5 Dragon Boat Festival Traditions
1. Watch Boat Races
Dragons may not be accurate, but except for the Dragon Boat competition, you’ll be able to watch still the fierce bodies of dragons dashing through the water powered by sports teams! Dragon Boat competition athletics are well-liked sports celebrated on this vacation worldwide. Groups of amateur and skilled rowers race brilliantly colored dragon-shaped boats. This tradition originated in southern China, wherever the dragon was particularly honored.
2. Eat Zongzi
Zòngzi is the traditional and official food of the Dragon Boat competition. The ingredients are tasteful sticky rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves. These delicious dumplings are available in many alternative flavors like red beans, dates, or meat.
3. Flirt in state
In Yunnan, the Dai individuals have distinctive customs for celebrating the fifth day of the fifth month. Historically, the Dragon Boat festival is named the “Zong Bao festival,” and a time for brand new likes to blossom among young lovers.
Single men and ladies wear their finest garments and fill the air amorously with songs. Young men can send gifts to the young ladies they fancy, and if a spark is there, true love will begin to bloom.
4. Bear in mind Qu Yuan
Today’s Dragon Boat Festival is the total of the many individual traditions of various respective teams across China. Together, these numerous traditions and stories intercalary up into the vacation we all know nowadays.
One of the foremost far-famed stories is regarding Qu Yuan, a nationalist, and author WHO lived in the war-ridden States. Once his home state of Chu folded, he committed suicide within the Miluo stream out of hopelessness on the fifth day of the fifth month.
5. Wear Lucky fragrance Pouches
The fifth month is alleged to be unlucky–disaster, plagues, insects, and pests all are dangers throughout this point. To stay safe, the Chinese would historically wear little pouches of aromatic spices around their belts or necks. This little hand-sewn luggage contains incense like calamus, wormwood, realgar, and alternative herbs.
Food
There are various delicious dishes in Chinese cookery, a number that is famed everywhere over the globe. The Chinese pay friendly attention to the change of state, with thousands of years of recipes and progress that transcend from generation to generation to satisfy the cultural traditions that are followed and celebrated nowadays.
Because the culture focuses heavily on food, completely different foods hold a special significance, counting on the festival being celebrated and, therefore, the region during which it’s celebrated. For the Dragon Boat festival, these food things vary as some famed dishes are Zongzi, Jiandui (Fried Cake), Eggs Steamed with Tea, and many others.
Symbols
A dragon boat could be a human-powered or paddle boat that’s historically fabricated from teak wood in varied styles and sizes. They have brilliantly embellished styles that vary from forty to a hundred feet long, with the front formed like open-mouthed dragons and, therefore, the backside with a scaly tail.
The boat will have up to eighty rowers to power the boat, counting on the length. The ship is brought to life by painting the eyes before any competition. The primary team to grab a flag at the tip of the course wins the race.
The zongzi could be a sticky rice ball with a filling wrapped in corn leaves. The fillings are egg, beans, dates, fruits, sweet potato, walnuts, mushrooms, meat, or a mix. They’re typically steamed. The remainder of the year is lucky if you’ll balance a raw prod and its finishes at precisely twelve noon on Double Fifth Day.
The hanging of calamus and moxa on the exterior door, the pasting up photos of Chung Kuei drinking Hsiung Huang wine, and holding perfumed sachets square measure the same to possess qualities for preventing evil and transferring peace. Another custom practiced in Taiwan is “fetching twelve-noon water,” throughout which people draw spring water on the afternoon of the competition. The basic idea is that it’s going to cure all illnesses.
Also read: Chinese cuisine food; Ox and Dragon Compatibility; Chinese zodiac dragon.