What is the Dragon Boat Festival?

The Dragon Boat Festival, also known as Duanyang Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Zhengyang Festival and Tianzhong Festival, originated from the worship of astronomical phenomena in ancient times and evolved from the Dragon Boat Festival. On the midsummer Dragon Boat Festival, the black dragon rises to the south of the sky for seven nights, which is an auspicious day for the dragon to fly. As the fifth poem in the Book of Changes says, "The dragon is in the sky". At noon, Long Xing is both a "win" and a "right" and a symbol of good luck. Its origin covers ancient astrological culture, humanistic philosophy and other aspects, and contains profound and rich cultural connotations; In the process of inheritance and development, a variety of folk customs are integrated, and festival customs are rich in content. Picking dragon boats and eating zongzi are two major customs of the Dragon Boat Festival, which have been passed down in China since ancient times and have never stopped. [ 1][2][3][4]

Dragon Boat Festival was originally founded by the ancestors of southern wuyue, to worship the ancestors of dragons and pray for evil spirits. It is said that Qu Yuan, a poet of Chu State in the Warring States Period, jumped into the Miluo River on May 5th and committed suicide. Later, people also took the Dragon Boat Festival as a festival to commemorate Qu Yuan. There are also sayings in memory of Wu Zixu, Cao E and meson push. Generally speaking, the Dragon Boat Festival originated from the ancient ancestors' choice of "flying dragons over the sky" as an auspicious day to worship their ancestors and pray for evil spirits, and injected the seasonal fashion of "eliminating diseases and preventing epidemics" into summer. The Dragon Boat Festival, regarded as "bad month and bad day", began in the northern part of the Central Plains and was attached to commemorate Qu Yuan and other historical figures.

Dragon Boat Festival, Spring Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day and Mid-Autumn Festival are also called the four traditional festivals in China. Dragon Boat Festival culture has a wide influence in the world, and some countries and regions in the world also celebrate it. 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 statutory holiday. In September, 2009, UNESCO officially approved its inclusion in the representative list of intangible cultural heritage of mankind, and the Dragon Boat Festival became the first festival in China to be selected as a world intangible heritage.

The above is from Baidu Encyclopedia.