The Chinese Province of Hubei celebrated its annual Dragon Boat Festival last weekend, attracting thousands of tourists from China and the world over.
The Dragon Boat Festival goes back two millennia to the ancient state of Chu – which spanned a large area in Southern China, including present-day Hubei and Hunan provinces. A sizeable number of Sri Lankan-Chinese, particularly those who started dental practices, are from Hubei Province.
The Dragon Boat Festival, or Duanwu Jie, is a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. It’s a time of festivities, including dragon boat races, eating zongzi (sticky rice dumplings), and honouring the patriotic poet and statesman Qu Yuan.
According to legend, when Qu Yuan was exiled due to court intrigue, he wrote powerful poems mourning his country’s fate. After Chu’s capital fell, Qu Yuan drowned himself in the Miluo River out of despair. Locals raced out in boats to save him and threw rice into the water to keep fish from his body. This became the origin of dragon boat races and the tradition of eating zongzi each year.
There is belief that the tradition is much older; originating from ancient dragon worship among communities living in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, as well as in regions further South.
Hanging mugwort, wearing sachets and drinking realgar wine also makes up the Duanwu Jie traditions. As midsummer approached, the ancient Chinese observed that the increasing heat and humidity was ripe for diseases. To ward off these diseases, they developed customs to repel insects, prevent illnesses and purify their surroundings.
