Customs of Dragon Boat Festival in Shanxi Province

On the fifth day of May, Dragon Boat Festival, also known as Duanyang Festival, Chongwu Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Chongwu Festival, Daughter's Day, Tianzhong Festival and Dila Festival, etc. It is the most grand festival in Shanxi folk summer.

The connotation of Dragon Boat Festival originates from the activities of ancient people to ward off evil spirits and avoid epidemics. Midsummer is the most active season for the breeding and spreading of various diseases on the Loess Plateau.

The ancients couldn't solve this mystery, so they thought it was evil and created a series of means to avoid evil. Later, it became a custom and formed the Dragon Boat Festival folk activities in our province today. The Dragon Boat Festival is defined as a festival, which should be related to the summer solstice in the twenty-four solar terms of the lunar calendar.

The summer solstice is the earliest summer solar term in the history of China, which existed as early as the early Shang Dynasty and was called midsummer. The determination of the summer solstice provides a prerequisite for the folk activities of ancient people in summer.

The Book of Rites says that the custom of May 5th in Han Dynasty originated from the summer solstice festival in Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties. Han E of the Tang Dynasty also interpreted the Dragon Boat Festival as "full of sunshine in midsummer" in Li Nian Room.