|
Dragon
Boat Festival
Dragon Boat Festival is also called Duan Wu Jie ( 端午节) in China, it is celebrated on the 5th day of the 5th month of the
Chinese lunar calendar.
People celebrated Dragon Boat Festival by racing boats in the shape of
dragons. Competing teams row their boats forward following the rhythm
of pounding drums. This lively and colorful tradition has continued
unbroken for centuries to the present day, Dragon boat races are now
held in worldwide.
 The most
popular theory of the origin of Dragon Boat Festival is that it started
from 278 B.C., when the patriotic poet Qu Yuan, who was regarded as a
wise, upright, loyal and highly esteemed for his wise counsel, drowned
himself in the Miluo river to oppose the rule of Qin
conqueror.
To remember and honor Qu Yuan, people rowed dragon boats on the river
and dropped rice dumplings ( 粽子 Zongzi), eggs and other food into the
water to feed the fishes in the hope that Qu Yuan's body would be
salvaged.
Zongzi( 粽子 ) is the most popular food for the festival. Zongzi is a
special kind of rice dumpling made of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo
leaves and bound with a sort of raffia and boiled in water for hours.
Ingredients such as beans, dates, lotus seeds, chestnuts, pork and the
golden yolk of a salted duck egg were often mixed within. The most
popular shapes of Zongzi today are triangular and pyramidal. Fresh bamboo leaves are the best for the wrapping for adding
its smell and taste.
The dragon-boat races represented the attempts
to rescue and recover the body of Qu Yuan. A dragon boat ranged from
fifty to one hundred feet in length with a beam of about five and a
half feet, accommodating two paddlers sitting side by side. A wooden
dragonhead was attached at the bow, and a dragon tail at the stern.
Competitions were held between different teams and organizations, and
winners were awarded medals, banners, jugs of wine and festive meals.
As a symbol of Asian culture, in particular Chinese culture, you can't
get more evocative than Dragon Boat racing. Teams from all over the
world compete in this spectacular event, a combination of heritage,
sport and spectacle.
Over the past 25 years, Dragon boat racing has spread beyond Asia to
Europe, North America, Australia and Africa, to become an international
sport with a huge following. Nowadays it is among the fastest growing
water sports and remains amazingly the largest team sport, with over 60
million participants in over 50 countries.
Other Chinese Traditional
Festivals
|
