What is the Dragon Boat Festival?

Dragon Boat Festival, also known as Duanyang Festival, Double Ninth Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Zhengyang Festival, Magnolia Festival and Tianzhong Festival, is the first festival in China to be included in the world intangible cultural heritage. It originated in ancient China and falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month every year.

Dragon Boat Festival was originally a festival to drive away plague and dragon boat festival in summer. There are folk customs such as "picking dragon boats", "eating zongzi", "flying kites" and "hanging wormwood and calamus".

There are at least four or five theories about the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival. So far, the most influential view on the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival is to commemorate Qu Yuan. Legend has it that after Qu Yuan jumped into the river, the local people injured him and died, so they set sail to save him because of the custom of racing cars.

He also said that people often put food into the water to offer sacrifices to Qu Yuan, but most of the food was eaten by dragons. Later, due to Qu Yuan's suggestion, they wrapped rice in neem leaves, wrapped it in colored silk, and later made it look like zongzi. To commemorate this day, people designated it as Dragon Boat Festival.