Introduction
The day of lunar May 5 is popularly called Duanwu Festival, which is often translated into English as Dragon Boat Festival. In the name, Duan means start or beginning. The fifth can also be called Duan Five. Chinese lunar calendar uses the twelve earthly branches to number the months of the year, in which system Yen represents lunar January, Mao for February, and Wu for May. Therefore, May is also called month Wu with the pronunciation as in noon of Chinese. In this way, five and Wu are phonetically interchanged, and five is a Yang number (in Chinese tradition, we often call odd number from one to nine as Yang numbers, while the rest are Yin numbers). Hence, Duanwu (wu refers to noon) is also named Duanwu (wu refers to five), Double Five, Duanyang, Mid-sky, Double Noon, Noon Day, etc. In some places, Dragon Boat Festivalis also called May Festival, Ai Festival, and Summer Festival. In historical books, the two characters of Duan Wu first appeared in Customs Record composed by Zhou Chu in Jin dynasty, “On mid-summer Duanwu, people cook glutinous rice dumplings”. Dragon Boat Festivalis a traditional festival for Han Chinese. The popular activities on this day are eating Zongzi (the glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in reed leaves as mentioned above), racing dragon boat, hanging calamus and wormwood leaves, smoking the root of dahuriae angelica, and drinking realgar wine. It is said that people eat Zongzi and race dragon boat in order to commemorate Quyuan, the great poet who lived more than 2000 years ago. For this reason, after liberation, some people ever advised to name this festival poet festival to honor Quyuan. As to those practices relating to hanging calamus and wormwood leaves, smoking the root of dahuriae angelica, drinking realgar wine, people simply think they would ward off evil spirits and keep themselves healthy.
Even now, Dragon Boat Festivalis still an important festival for Chinese. In 2008, it is stipulated as a national legal festival in China. The Chinese government pays much attention to protecting intangible cultural heritages. May 20, 2006, it is listed as a national intangible cultural heritage of the first group granted by the Chinese State Council.
Origination
The origination of Dragon Boat Festival can be classified into the following several versions:
Commemorating Qu Yuan, this statement first appeared in Extension of Supernatural Tales composed by Wu Jun and in Jingchu Festival Records by Zong Lin in South and North Dynasties. It is said that on lunar May 5, Qu Yuan drowned himself in Miluo River. But after death, he was harassed by dragons, about which local people felt very sad, so on his death anniversary people would throw colored Zongzi into the river to stop their harassment. Another version says that after hearing Qu Yuan threw himself into the river, the local people immediately row their boats into the river, but they didn’t find his body even when they went as far as to Dongting Lake. At that moment, it was rain, there some boats berthed at a pavilion on the bank. When they heard that people in the lake were rescuing the virtuous minister Qu Yuan, they rushed to join the group on to the vast lake. In the next years, in order to commemorate this great poet, people would assemble on rivers and lakes to organize ceremonies of dragon boat racing. Therefore, eating Zongzi and racing dragon boats are related to paying homage to Qu Yuan, which is proved by a poem entitled Duanwu by Wen Xiu of Tang dynasty, “What is Dragon Boat Festival for? Legend told for generations says it is for Qu Yuan. Ridiculous that the Chu River is vainly vast, the injustice he was treated can not be washed.”
(Source: bjchinese.bjedu.cn)