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    • Dragon Boat Festival Customs!

     
    CELEBRATING THE DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL
    The Dragon Boat Festival, also called Double Fifth Festival, is celebrated on May 5th on lunarcalendar.  It is a folk festival widely spread with a history of over 2,000 years, and is one of the most important Chinese festivals as well.  There are various celebrating activities on that day, among which the customs of eating rice dumplings and dragon boat racing are quite important.
    FESTIVAL TRADITIONS

    Dragon Boat Racing

    Dragon Boat Racing

    The most popular activity during Dragon Boat Festival, this folk custom has been held for more than 2,000 years throughout southern China, and now it has become an international sport. It is inspired by the act of locals paddling out on boats to scare the fish away and retrieve Qu Yuan's body.粽子.png

    Zongzi
    Zongzi, the festival food, is made from glutinous rice with various fillings and wrapped in reed leaves. Usually, jujubes are added into rice in northern China; but in southern areas, bean paste, meat, ham, yolks could be wrapped together with rice into Zongzi; there are other fillings as well.挂艾草.png

    Hanging Mugwort leaves
    The fifth lunar month is marked as a "poisonous" month in the Chinese farmer's calendar.This is because insects and pests are active during this summer month and people are more prone to catch infectious diseases.

    Mugwort leaves and calamus are hanging on the door to repel insects, flies, fleas and moths from the house

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    Xiangbao

    Wearing Xiangbao

    Xiangbao are made using hand-sewn bags containing powders of calamus, wormwood, realgar, and other fragrant items. They are made and hung on necks to avoid catching contagious diseases and to keep evil spirits away during the fifth lunar month, a supposed unlucky month.

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    Applying Realgar wine

    Realgar wine or xionghuang wine is a Chinese alcoholic drink that is made from Chinese yellow wine dosed with powdered realgar. It is a traditional Chinese medicine that in ancient times, is believed to be an antidote for all poisons, and effective for killing insects and driving away evil spirits.

    Painting Kids’ Foreheads with Realgar Wine

    Parents would paint a Chinese character ‘王’ (wang, literally meaning ‘king’) using realgar wine. ‘王’ looks like the four stripes on a tiger’s forehead. In Chinese culture, the tiger represents the masculine principle in nature and is the king of all the animals.

    Post time: Jun-02-2022