The Dragon Boat Festival

The Dragon Boat Festival

The Dragon Boat Festival, also known as the Dragon Boat Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Chongwu Festival, Dragon Festival, Zhengyang Festival, Tianzhong Festival and so on, originated from the worship of celestial phenomena and evolved from the Dragon sacrifice in ancient times. During the mid summer Dragon Boat Festival, the black dragon flies to the South midheaven, which is an auspicious day for the dragon to fly to the sky. On the Dragon Boat Festival, the Dragon Star "gets middle" and "gets right", which is an auspicious sign. Its origin covers the Ancient Astrology culture, humanistic philosophy and other aspects, and contains profound and rich cultural connotation; in the inheritance and development, it has mixed a variety of folk customs into one, and the festival customs are rich in content. Dragon Boat picking and rice dumpling eating are the two major customs of the Dragon Boat Festival. These two customs have been handed down in China since ancient times, and have been going on ever since.

The Dragon Boat Festival was originally established by the ancestors of Wu and Yue in the south for worshiping the Dragon ancestors and praying for blessings and evil spirits. It is said that Qu Yuan, a poet of the state of Chu in the Warring States period, killed himself in the Miluo River on May 5. Later, people also took the Dragon Boat Festival as a festival to commemorate Qu Yuan. There are also some sayings to commemorate Wu Zixu, Cao E and Jie Zitui. Generally speaking, the Dragon Boat Festival originated from the ancient ancestors who chose the auspicious day of "flying dragon in the sky" to worship the Dragon ancestors, pray for blessings and ward off evil spirits, and infused the fashion of "eliminating diseases and preventing epidemics" in the summer season; the Dragon Boat Festival was regarded as the "evil moon and evil day" in the northern Central Plains, and the commemorative contents of Qu Yuan and other historical figures were attached.

Dragon Boat Festival, Spring Festival, Qingming Festival and Mid Autumn Festival are known as China's four traditional festivals. The Dragon Boat Festival culture has a wide influence in the world, and some countries and regions in the world also have activities to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival. In May 2006, the State Council listed it in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list; since 2008, it has been listed as a national legal holiday. In September 2009, UNESCO officially approved its inclusion in the list of representative works of human intangible cultural heritage. The Dragon Boat Festival became the first festival in China to be included in the world intangible cultural heritage list.