The Chinese Dragon Boat Festival
The Dragon Boat Festival is a significant holiday celebrated in China to commemorate the Chinese patriotic poet Qu Yuan who lived in the Warring States Period (475 - 221 BC). The traditional customs on that day are racing boats in the shape of dragons and eating zong zi.
Served as the Minister of the Zhou Emperor, Qu Yuan was a wise and articulate man who was loved by the common people. He did much to fight against the rampant corruption that plagued the court, and thereby earning the envy and fear of other officials. When he urged the emperor to avoid conflict with the Qin Kingdom, the officials persuaded the Emperor to have him removed from service. In his exile, he traveled, taught and wrote for several years. Hearing that the Zhou had been defeated by the Qin, he fell into despair and threw himself into the Milou River.
The boat races during the Dragon Boat Festival attempts to rescue the patriotic poet Qu Yuan who drowned on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in 277 B.C. The Chinese also throw zong zi, a kind of cooked rice dumplings covered by bamboo leaves into the water in the hope that the fish could eat the rice rather than the hero poet. This later turned into the custom of racing boats and eating zong zi on that day.
The celebration of the Dragon Boat Festival in Chinese tradition is also considered as a way to protect people from evil and disease for the rest of the year. This is done by different practices such as hanging healthy herbs on the front door, drinking nutritious concoctions, and displaying portraits of evil’s nemesis, Zhong Kui. There is an old Chinese saying that if one manages to stand an egg on its end at midnight, he will be a lucky dog in the following year.
The Dragon Boat Festival is a public holiday in China and all the staff in BPOVIA will have a day off on June 9, 2008 (Monday) to celebrate the Festival.
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