Dragon Boat Festival
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- For the same festival in other East Asian cultures, see Double Fifth.
| Dragon Boat Festival | ||
|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese: | 端午節 | |
| Simplified Chinese: | 端午节 | |
| Mandarin | ||
| Hanyu Pinyin: | Duānwū Jié | |
| Cantonese | ||
| Jyutping: | Dyun1 Ngm3 Dzit8 | |
| Alternative Chinese name | ||
| Traditional Chinese: | 端陽 | |
| Simplified Chinese: | 端阳 | |
| Mandarin | ||
| Pinyin: | Duānyáng | |
| Cantonese | ||
| Jyutping: | Dyun1 Yeong4 | |
Dragon Boat Festival, often known as Tuen Ng Festival or Duan Wu Festival, is a traditional Chinese festival held on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese calendar. It is also known as the Double Fifth.[citation needed] It has since been celebrated, in various ways, in other parts of East Asia as well, most notably Korea.
The exact origins of Duan Wu are unclear, but one traditional view holds that the festival memorializes the Chinese poet Qu Yuan (c. 340 BC-278 BC) of the Warring States Period. He committed suicide by drowning himself in a river because he was disgusted by the corruption of the Chu government. The local people, knowing him to be a good man, decided to throw food into the river to feed the fishes to prevent them from eating Qu's body. They also sat on long, narrow paddle boats called dragon boats, and tried to scare the fishes away by the thundering sound of drums aboard the boat and the fierce looking carved dragon head on the boat's prow.
In the early years of the Chinese Republic, Duan Wu was also celebrated as "Poets' Day," due to Qu Yuan's status as China's first poet of personal renown.
Today, people eat glutinous rice dumplings called zongzi (the food originally intended to feed the fishes) and race dragon boats in memory of Qu's dramatic death.
