other than the boat races what are some of the practices done during this festival
2007-02-09 12:59:35 · 5 answers · asked by lgsainz13 1 in Travel ➔ Asia Pacific ➔ China
http://knows.jongo.com/res/article/1289
Dragon Boat Festival (端午节)falls on the 5th day of the 5th month of the lunar year, so it is also called "Duan Wu(端午)", meaning the Day of Right Mid-Day.
A number of stories support the origin of Dragon Boat Festival but the most well known story is about a patriotic court official named Qu Yaan, of the state Chu. This occurred more than 2000 years ago during the Warring States Period. Qu was trying to warn the emperor of Chu about its corrupt government, but he had failed for it. Once during a protest, he threw himself into a river and was drowned. Chu was annexed by the state of Qin soon.
Later Qu Yuan's sympathizers jumped into boats, beat the water with their oars and made rice dumplings wrapped in reed-leaves (zongzi)(棕子) and scattered them into the Miluo River(汨罗江)in the hope that fish in the river would eat the rice dumplings instead of the body of the deceased poet. The custom of making rice dumplings spread to the whole country. Today, people eat glutinous rice cakes to mark the occasion.
Hearing about the poets death even the local people got into their boat in search of his body. Soon, this changed into boat race with dragon shaped boats. Even today, on this day dragon boat races are commonly seen. During this competition rowers stroke their oars in unisons to propel sleek, long vessels through water.
2007-02-11 20:03:05 · answer #1 · answered by nofj2 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
We eat Zongzi in the Dragon Boat Festival's tradition, there are dragon-boat racing activities in some southern cities of China
2007-02-09 14:13:44 · answer #2 · answered by Daisy_Cheng 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Not just in the south; there are races in Shanghai and other places in China.
The food part has been answered. More about the races: it is very hard to row in time with the drum - I tried in a competition for us ex-pats. We were all rowing at different times, all to the amusement of the locals.
Many cities will have beauty contests, shows, etc. at that time.
2007-02-10 20:54:51 · answer #3 · answered by Rick 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
4 the celebration of chinese new year,it's a tradition 4 them having dragon boat festival,beauties contest,dragon dance contest etc.
2007-02-09 14:26:15 · answer #4 · answered by robert KS LEE. 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
they eat zongzi, a pyramid-shaped mass of glutinous rice wrapped in leaves , and they commemorate the great poet qu yuan
2007-02-09 15:17:02 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋