This paper briefly summarizes the origin and significance of eating zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival.

The origin of eating zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival;

According to legend, in 340 BC, Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet and doctor of Chu, faced the pain of national subjugation. On May 5th, he threw a big stone into Guluo River with grief and indignation. In order to prevent fish and shrimp from damaging his body, people throw rice into the river with bamboo tubes. In the future, people will put rice in bamboo tubes and throw it into the river to pay homage to Qu Yuan. This is the origin of China's earliest zongzi-"tube zongzi".

Why did you wrap zongzi with wormwood leaves or reed leaves and lotus leaves later? There is such a record in the Elementary Book: During the Jianwu period of the Han Dynasty, Changsha people dreamed of a man who called himself Dr. San Lv (the official name of Qu Yuan) at night and said to him, "Everything you sacrificed was stolen by the dragon in the river, so you can wrap it with mugwort leaves and tie it with colorful silk thread in the future. Dragons are most afraid of these two things. " As a result, people made "corn millet" with "leaves wrapped in millet", which was passed down from generation to generation and gradually developed into the Dragon Boat Festival food in China.

The significance of eating zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival;

In Jin Dynasty, Zongzi was officially designated as Dragon Boat Festival food. At this time, in addition to glutinous rice, Alpinia oxyphylla was added as the raw material for making zongzi, and the boiled zongzi was called "educational zongzi". According to "Yueyang Local Customs", "custom wraps millet with leaves, and cooks it thoroughly. From May 5 to the solstice in summer, there is a zongzi and a millet. " During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, miscellaneous zongzi appeared. Rice is mixed with animal meat, chestnuts, red dates, red beans and so on. And there are more and more varieties. Zongzi is also used as a gift for communication.

In the Tang Dynasty, the rice used for zongzi was "white as jade", and its shape appeared conical and rhombic. There is a record of "Tang Zongzi" in Japanese literature. In the Song Dynasty, there were already "candied zongzi", that is, fruits were put into zongzi. The poet Su Dongpo has a poem "See Yangmei in Zongzi". At this time, there were also advertisements for building pavilions and wooden chariots and horses with zongzi, indicating that eating zongzi was very fashionable in the Song Dynasty. In the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, the wrapping material of zongzi changed from leaves to leaves. Later, zongzi wrapped in reed leaves appeared, and additional materials such as bean paste, pork, pine nuts, dates and walnuts appeared, and the varieties were more colorful.

Extended data

The Dragon Boat Festival on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month is one of the four traditional festivals in China. According to the Chronicle of Jingchu, midsummer is because the sun is on the mountain in midsummer, and May is midsummer. Its first afternoon is a sunny day, so the fifth day of May is also called "Duanyang Festival". In addition, the Dragon Boat Festival is also called Zhengyang Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Noon Festival, May Day, Dragon Boat Festival, Bathing Orchid Festival, Tianzhong Festival and so on. The customs of the Dragon Boat Festival mainly include eating zongzi and dragon boat racing. The custom of eating zongzi has been popular in China for thousands of years. The dragon boat race is very popular in the southern coastal areas of China, which is deeply loved by people all over the world and has formed an international competition. ?

Dragon Boat Festival originated in China. It was originally a totem festival held by the tribes who worshipped dragon totem in ancient Baiyue area. Before the Spring and Autumn Period, there was a custom of offering sacrifices to dragon ancestors and racing dragon boats in Baiyue area. Qu Yuan, a Chu poet in the Warring States Period, devoted himself to loyalty by jumping on the Miluo River at noon, and later took the Dragon Boat Festival as a festival to commemorate Qu Yuan. In some places, there are sayings in memory of Wu Zixu, Cao E and meson tui. Generally speaking, the Dragon Boat Festival originated in Baiyue in the south. From the north, the fifth day of the fifth lunar month was regarded as a "bad month and bad day", which injected the seasonal fashion of "getting rid of diseases and preventing epidemics" in summer, and attached commemorative contents to historical figures such as Qu Yuan's suicide by jumping into the river, and finally formed the Dragon Boat Festival culture.

Dragon Boat Festival is popular in China and other countries in the cultural circle of Chinese characters. Together with Spring Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day and Mid-Autumn Festival, it is called the four traditional folk festivals in China. In May 2006, the State Council listed it in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list; Since 2008, the Dragon Boat Festival has been listed as a national statutory holiday. ? [8]? In September 2009, UNESCO formally considered and approved the inclusion of China Dragon Boat Festival in the representative list of intangible cultural heritage of mankind, and the Dragon Boat Festival became the first world-renowned festival in China.

References:

Baidu Encyclopedia: Dragon Boat Festival