Duan-wu Jie (Dragon Boat Festival)

Preparation for the holidayThis day is also called the Double Five Festival, Duan Yang Festival, Poet’s Day. It falls on the fifth day of the fifth month according to the lunar calendar. Duan-wu Jie is one of the three most important traditional festivals in China.

According to the most popular opinion, the emergence of this holiday is associated with the memory of the ancient Chinese poet-patriot Qu Yuan.

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Qu Yuan lived in the Chu kingdom during the Warring States (V-III centuries B.C.) and repeatedly addressed the Chu king with proposals for reforms against political degradation, decline and corruption. But he, believing the denunciations of dignitaries who deliberately talked about Qu Yuan, expelled him from the capital. In 278 BC, the troops of the kingdom of Qin captured the capital of the kingdom of Chu. Qu Yuan, learning of such national shame, could not bear it and on the fifth day of the fifth month committed suicide, throwing himself into the river. According to legend, after learning of his death, people in grief and horror rushed into boats and long searched for the body of the poet in the river, but never found.

Subsequently, every year on the day of the death of the poet, people in his memory began to arrange boat races on the rivers, made in the form of dragons. At the same time, they threw bamboo knees filled with boiled rice into the river for Qu Yuan. But one day, according to legend, Qu Yuan himself met on the shore and said, “All the rice you give me is eaten by a dragon.” Wrap rice in cane leaves and tie it with a colored thread, because the dragon is most afraid of these two things.

Thus, the traditional food of this holiday - tsungzi (wrapped in cane leaves glutinous rice).

Currently, consideration is being given to making Duan Wu a public holiday.