Dragon Boat Festival

Dragon Boat Festival, prominent and festive Chinese holiday that originated at least 1,500 years ago and features dragon boat races and rice dumplings. It is one of the three “festivals of the living,” along with the Chinese New Year and the Mid-Autumn Festival. Known as Duanwu Jie in Mandarin and Tuen Ng in Cantonese, it is also called the Double Fifth Festival, because it is celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month of the Chinese calendar, which falls in May or June on the Gregorian calendar. Legends associated with the festival and its observance center on memorials for local heroes. The celebration of the Dragon Boat Festival includes various activities involving dragons, otherworldly spirits, plenty of food, and folk entertainment. The holiday is also associated with rituals to ward off evil spirits and disease, which are thought to threaten during the fifth month.

History of the Dragon Boat Festival

The origins of the festival, according to scholars, likely predate the legends told about it. The holiday is probably associated with ancient fertility rites to ensure a good rice harvest. The association with dragons might have developed from the role dragons were thought to play in rainfall and the importance of rivers in rice cultivation. The festival might have originated in southern China where the dragon god has been worshipped and regarded as a sacred emblem and ancestor. The holiday occurs about the time of the summer solstice, and, according to the philosophy of yinyang, that time marks a shift from the yang period of growth to the yin period of decay. Early celebrations of the festival are thought to have been attempts to balance those energies. Over centuries the ancient agricultural rites merged with legends of self-sacrifice and apotropaic rituals—rituals to turn away evil forces—to form the festival as it is practiced today.

The festival is now also celebrated in several neighboring countries in East Asia and throughout the Chinese diaspora. It was suppressed in China during the communist government’s Cultural Revolution (1966–76), but later government efforts to support Chinese culture have revived the ancient festival. It was declared an official holiday in China in 2008 and is celebrated over three days. In 2009 the Dragon Boat Festival became the first Chinese holiday to be added to UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. In some modern instances, dragon boat racing has drifted from its religious and cultural moorings to become a popular rowing sport.

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Legends of the Dragon Boat Festival

Various legends with different memorialized heroes, most of whom took their own lives in rivers, are recounted in different parts of China to explain this festival’s origins. The most popular legend, which establishes the origin of both the festival’s boats and dumplings, links the festival to the death of patriotic poet Qu Yuan (c. 339–278 bce). He lived during the Warring States period and was a trusted counselor to the king of Chu, but he was later accused of treason and exiled. In despair over his banishment, Qu Yuan wandered southern Chu, writing poetry and observing the shamanistic folk rites and legends that greatly influenced his works. When he heard that Chu’s capital had been conquered, he was so distraught that he drowned himself in the Miluo River on the fifth day of the fifth month. In honor of this great poet, the holiday is sometimes called Poet’s Day. In some quarters of the tradition it is said that for years after his death devotees threw food into the river as offerings to the great Qu Yuan’s spirit, but a water dragon got to it first, so Qu Yuan came back from the dead to suggest they wrap the food in leaves, thereby creating the festival’s signature sticky rice dumplings (zongzi). In other quarters it is said that people searched for his body in their boats in an attempt to save him, and, unable to locate him, they tossed zongzi into the river to distract fish from eating his body. Evidence of dragon boat racing in honor of Qu Yuan can be dated to the 5th or 6th century ce. The Hubei and Hunan provinces in particular celebrate the memory of Qu Yuan at the annual Dragon Boat Festival.

Another legend extends the festival’s origins earlier to the Spring and Autumn period and the death of statesman Wu Zixu in 484 bce. His father and brother were killed by the king of Chu, which led him to seek refuge in the Wu kingdom, where he was eventually betrayed and forced to kill himself. His body was tossed in the Qiantang River on the fifth day of the fifth month. His fury is said to have created such raging tides that people in some parts of China worship him as a river god. This legend is told in Fujian, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang provinces.

A third legend, also from Zhejiang province, recounts the tragic story of a 14-year-old girl named Cao E whose father had been missing for several days after going fishing. Beside herself in sorrow, she went to the Shunjiang River to search for him. Accounts differ on whether she intended to kill herself in the water or jumped in thinking she could save her father. It is said that her dead body was found holding her father’s dead body a few days later. This legend, which places Cao E’s death at 143 ce, varies regarding whether it was the fifth day of the fifth month that her father went to the river to fish or the fifth day of the fifth month that she jumped into the river to retrieve his body. Unlike the previous legends that feature men’s self-sacrifice to country, Cao E’s story emphasizes the Confucian ideal of filial piety—that is, devotion to one’s family.

Another hero commemorated on this holiday in some corners and in more recent times is the feminist poet Qiu Jin (1875–1907). She rejected gender norms in traditional Chinese society that kept women in the home and deprived them of education. She was also a revolutionary opposed to the Qing empire. Beheaded in 1907 by the Qing government, which accused her of conspiring to overthrow it, she became a martyr and is sometimes called China’s “Joan of Arc.” She is honored on Poet’s Day, along with Qu Yuan and the others.

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Of dragons, dumplings, and dangerous things

The dragons featured in this festival are among the most important creatures in Chinese mythology. They symbolize power, strength, and luck and are believed to control the seasons, harvests, rain, water, typhoons, and floods. Thus, a key part of the festival involves worshipping the dragon god. Additionally, the legend of people searching for Qu Yuan in their boats ties in with the practice of dragon boat racing.

The traditional sport of dragon boat racing combines a festive atmosphere with the exciting tensions of a competitive match. Dragon boats are narrow and long, ranging in length from about 40 feet (12 meters) to more than 100 feet (35 meters), and are decorated with the head and tail of a dragon. They are guided by a designated steerer at the stern and powered by two rows of paddlers (crews can have from 20 to about 80 members), who paddle in unison to the beat of a drummer usually seated at the bow. In historical times crews would consist of teams from different clans or guilds who competed in bitter rivalries. Dragon boat racing has become increasingly popular, and in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games (held in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic) it was included as a demonstration sport, with many professional dragon boaters hoping that it might eventually become a medal sport.

Like many festivals around the world, the Dragon Boat Festival conspicuously features special foods, most notably zongzi dumplings. The zongzi dumplings are associated with the Qu Yuan legend. Zongzi are made with glutinous rice and stuffed with a variety of sweet or savory fillings, including dates, egg yolks, and meat. The pyramid-shaped dumplings are wrapped in bamboo leaves, tied with a string, and steamed or boiled. Other popular foods include eggs steamed with tea, thin pancakes, eel, and glutinous rice cakes. Celebrants might also drink realgar wine—wine made from fermented grains and sprinkled with realgar minerals—which is said to fight off diseases, snakes, and wicked spirits.

Many of the festival’s rituals are rooted in intentions to free people of misfortunes associated with the fifth month, and various rituals and talismans are employed out of a belief that they might provide protection. It is thought in Chinese culture that this time period is associated with a surge in contagious diseases and plagues and increased activity of the five poisonous creatures (snakes, scorpions, centipedes, lizards, and toads; sometimes spiders appear in place of one of those). A tableau illustration of these five creatures can be seen frequently throughout China. In order to ward off evil influences, celebrants bathe in flower-scented water and wear perfume pouches. Additional practices involve employing the five colors—blue, red, yellow, black, and white—that represent the five elements and five natural forces. In combination, they are said to be protective, and threads of them might be worn on the body or tied around wrists and ankles. Hanging items over doorways and on windows is another tradition of the festival. People hang plants such as calamus, mugwort, and wormwood to avoid bad luck and fend off disease. Finally, one might also see on this holiday portraits of Zhong Kui, a mythical figure who the Tang emperor Xuanzong dreamed about before recovering from a monthlong illness. According to this legend, Zhong Kui was a scholar who tragically killed himself over a slight but returned in the afterlife to defeat demons and ghosts with his sword, offering further protection on this holiday for people fearful of dangerous spirits and creatures.