Duanwu Festival (端午节, Duānwū Jié) is a traditional Chinese festival held on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese calendar. It is also known as the Double Fifth.[citation(引用;引证) needed] It has since been celebrated, in various ways, in other parts of East Asia as well. In the West, it's commonly known as Dragon Boat Festival.
The exact origins of Duan Wu are unclear, but one traditional view holds that the festival memorializes the Chinese poet Qu Yuan (c. 340 BC-278 BC) of the Warring States Period. He committed suicide by drowning himself in a river because he was disgusted by the corruption of the Chu government. The local people, knowing him to be a good man, decided to throw food into the river to feed the fish so they would not eat Qu's body. They also sat on long, narrow paddle boats called dragon boats, and tried to scare the fish away by the thundering sound of drums aboard the boat and the fierce looking carved dragon head on the boat's prow(船头).
In the early years of the Chinese Republic, Duan Wu was also celebrated as "Poets' Day," due to Qu Yuan's status as China's first poet of personal renown(名声名望).
Today, people eat bamboo-wrapped steamed glutinous(粘的) rice dumplings called zongzi (the food originally intended to feed the fish) and race dragon boats in memory of Qu's dramatic death.
The Dragon Boat Festival ,also called the Duanwu Festival ,is celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth month according to the Chinese calendar.People always eat rice dumplings and watch dragon boat races to celebrate it.
The festival is best known for its dragon-boat races,especially in the southern places where there are many rivers and lakes. It's very popular.
The rice dumpling is made of glutinous rice,meat and so on. You can eat different kinds of rice dumplings.They are very delicious.And Dragon Boat Festival is for Qu Yuan. He is an honest minister who is said to have committed suicide by drowning himself in a river.
Overall, the Dragon Boat Festival is very interesting!
A Chinese holiday is gaining worldwide popularity
Some holidays are so much fun that they catch on outside of their culture. The most obvious example is probably Christmas, which is celebrated around the world by people who aren't even Christian. Similarly, in recent years, the Dragon Boat Festival has moved beyond China to become an international holiday celebrated by people who may know little about the holiday's origins.
The Dragon Boat Festival is one of three major Chinese holidays, along with the Spring and Moon Festivals. Of the three, it is possibly the oldest, dating back to the Warring States Period in 227 B.C. The festival commemorates Qu Yuan, a minister in the service of the Chu Emperor. Despairing over corruption at court, Qu threw himself into a river. Townspeople jumped into their boats and tried in vain to save him. Then, hoping to distract hungry fish from his body, the people scattered rice on the water.
Over the years, the story of Qu's demise transformed into the traditions of racing dragon boats and eating zongzi – a kind of rice wrapped in bamboo leaves. The races have certainly captured the imagination of people from all over the world. Every spring there are nearly 60 dragon boat races held outside of China in cities from Vancouver to Sydney, from Gdańsk, Poland to Cape Town, South Africa. Canada alone has nearly 50 dragon boat teams and Germany has nearly 30.
So what is it about the Dragon Boat Festival that appeals to foreigners? “It's an unusual sport,” says one racer from Germany. “It's not like everybody's doing it. That's one of the reasons that there's such great team spirit in a dragon boat team – everybody feels like we're doing something special.” And what about the zongzi? “Ehhh, they're not bad, I guess,” he says. “Something of an acquired taste. I just haven't really acquired it yet.”