{"id":6272,"date":"2019-11-10T14:40:52","date_gmt":"2019-11-10T14:40:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/chinese-culture\/duan-wu-jie-dragon-boat-festival-3\/"},"modified":"2019-11-10T14:40:52","modified_gmt":"2019-11-10T14:40:52","slug":"duan-wu-jie-dragon-boat-festival-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/duan-wu-jie-dragon-boat-festival-3\/","title":{"rendered":"\u7aef\u5348\u8282 Dragon Boat Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><strong>Related news: The 2015 China Dragon Boat Tournament starts competition at its third stop in the city of Chengmai, south China&#8217;s Hainan Province, on June 18, 2015. Twenty-four teams participated in the event to celebrate the upcoming Dragon Boat Festival, which falls on June 20 this year.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>  The Dragon Boat Festival(\u7aef\u5348\u8282 du\u0101n w\u01d4 ji&eacute;) , the 5th day of the 5th lunar month, has had a history of more than 2,000 years. Here are three things you must know.<\/p>\n<p>  &nbsp;Qu Yuan (340-278 BC) \u5c48\u539f(q\u016b yu&aacute;n)<\/p>\n<p>  There are many legends a<em><\/em>bout the evolution of the festival, the most popular of which is in commemoration of Qu Yuan (340-278 BC).<\/p>\n<p>  Qu Yuan was minister of the State of Chu and one of China&#8217;s earliest poets. In face of great pressure from the powerful Qin State, he advocated enriching the country and strengthening its military forces so as to fight against the Qin. However, he was opposed by aristocrats headed by Zi Lan, and later deposed and exiled by King Huai. In his exiled days, he still cared much for his country and people and composed immortal poems including Li Sao (\u79bb\u9a9aThe Lament), Tian Wen (\u5929\u95eeHeavenly Questions) and Jiu Ge (\u4e5d\u6b4cNine Songs), which had far-reaching influences.<\/p>\n<p>  In 278 BC, he heard the news that Qin troops had finally co<em><\/em>nquered Chu&#8217;s capital, so he finished his last piece Huai Sha (\u6000\u6c99Embracing Sand) and plunged himself into the Miluo River, clasping his arms to a large stone. The day happened to be the 5th of the 5th mo<em><\/em>nth in the Chinese lunar calendar.<\/p>\n<p>  After his death, the people of Chu crowded to the bank of the river to pay their respects to him. The fishermen sailed their boats up and down the river to look for his body. People threw into the water zo<em><\/em>ngzi (\u7cbd\u5b50pyramid-shaped glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in reed or bamboo leaves) and eggs to divert possible fish or shrimp from attacking his body. An old doctor poured a jug of reaglar wine (Chinese liquor seaso<em><\/em>ned with realgar) into the water, hoping to turn all aquatic beasts drunk. That&#8217;s why people later followed the customs such as dragon boat racing, eating zo<em><\/em>ngzi and drinking realgar wine on that day.<\/p>\n<p>  Dragon boat racing \u8d5b\u9f99\u821f (s&agrave;i l&oacute;ng zh\u014du)<\/p>\n<p>  Dragon boat racing is an indispensable part of the festival, held all over the country. As the gun is fired, people will see racers in dragon-shaped canoes pulling the oars harmo<em><\/em>niously and hurriedly, accompanied by rapid drums, speeding toward their destination. Folk tales say the game originates from the activities of seeking Qu Yuan&#8217;s body, but experts, after painstaking and meticulous research, co<em><\/em>nclude that dragon boat racing is a semi-religious, semi-entertaining program from the Warring States Period (475-221 BC). In the following thousands of years, the game spread to Japan, Vietnam and Britain as well as China&#8217;s Taiwan and Hong Kong. Now dragon boat racing has developed into an aquatic sports item which features both Chinese tradition and modern sporting spirit. In 1980, it was listed into the state sports competition programs and has since been held every year. The award is called &quot;Qu Yuan Cup.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>  Zo<em><\/em>ngzi \u7cbd\u5b50 (z&ograve;ng zi )<\/p>\n<p>  Zo<em><\/em>ngzi is an essential food of the Dragon Boat Festival. It is said that people ate them in the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC). In early times, it was o<em><\/em>nly glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in reed or other plant leaves and tied with colored thread, but now the fillings are more diversified, including jujube and bean paste, fresh meat, and ham and egg yolk. If time permits, people will soak glutinous rice, wash reed leaves and wrap up zo<em><\/em>ngzi themselves. Otherwise, they will go to shops to buy whatever stuff they want. The custom of eating zo<em><\/em>ngzi is now popular in North and South Korea, Japan and Southeast Asian nations.<\/p>\n<p>  On Dragon Boat Festival, parents also need to dress their children up with a perfume pouch(\u9999\u5305xi\u0101ng b\u0101o). They first sew little bags with colorful silk cloth, then fill the bags with perfumes or herbal medicines, and finally string them with silk threads. The perfume pouch will be hung around the neck or tied to the front of a garment as an ornament. They are said to be able to ward off evil.<\/div>\n<div class=\"chine-tie-zi-nei-rong-zhi-hou\" id=\"chine-3155649762\"><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1889418300638825\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1889418300638825\" \ndata-ad-slot=\"7273022922\" \ndata-ad-layout-key=\"-gw-3+1f-3d+2z\"\ndata-ad-format=\"fluid\"><\/ins>\n<script> \n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); \n<\/script>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Related news: The 2015 China Dragon Boat Tournament starts competition at its third stop in the city of Chengmai, south<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chinese-culture","category-traditional-chinese-festivals"],"views":131,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}