Dragon Boat Festival | Traditional Chinese Customs

The Dragon Boat Festival, observed annually on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar,

It is a traditional festival of the Chinese nation.

It is also China’s first festival to be inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

When we talk about the Dragon Boat Festival, the character “duan” conveys the meaning of “beginning.”

It marks the beginning of midsummer and the onset of the sweltering height of summer.

According to the Chinese calendar, the fifth month is known as “Wu Month.”

Thus, the fifth day of the fifth lunar month came to be known as the “Dragon Boat Festival.”

The Dragon Boat Festival is the most extraordinary day in the sweltering summer.

Our ancestors recorded it and, with their wisdom, prayed for peace and prosperity in future generations.

Ancient Chinese texts record: “The fifth day of the fifth month is an inauspicious month and an inauspicious day.”

From this day on, the weather grew dry and sweltering, insects and snakes multiplied, and ferocious beasts roamed about.

So people prepared mugwort, realgar wine, and colorful braided cords...

And the most solemn rituals are employed to ward off the Five Poisons, dispel evil spirits, and avert calamity.

To children, they don’t understand what evil spirits or ghosts are.

As long as you can experience happiness, that’s all that matters.

Yet isn’t happiness, after all, a pursuit in life?

When I was a child,

I do not know Qu Yuan, Wu Zixu, and Cao E,

All I know is that the Dragon Boat Festival is filled with endless joy.

I look forward to my mother cooking zongzi in the early morning, steaming hot and fragrant with the aroma of rice.

Enjoy zongzi deliciously with salted duck eggs,

After finishing the meal,

Parents would smear realgar wine on their child’s forehead and draw a “king” character there.

Pray that all illnesses and disasters will be taken away.

A scented sachet imbued with a subtle herbal fragrance, tied with a five-colored cord,

A delicate fragrance fills the air, brimming with hopes for the festival.

Whether it’s applying realgar wine, hanging scented sachets, or tying colorful threads,

Behind it all are parents’ heartfelt expectations for their children.

We made an appointment with our companions at the alley entrance to joyfully chase the dragon boat,

Back then, holidays were simply days of joy.

All I know is that zongzi are delicious and white sugar is very sweet.

Only later did I understand,

“The grievous spirit of Qu Yuan endures through the ages, and the lingering customs of the Chu region remain to this day.” The story,

Understanding the meaning behind each festival.

In youth, the Dragon Boat Festival was a wistful longing for home.

The Dragon Boat Festival has numerous traditional customs,

However, for wanderers far from home,

When it comes to the Dragon Boat Festival, eating zongzi seems to be the only thing that comes to mind.

Perhaps for adults, the Dragon Boat Festival is now reduced to a long holiday and the scent of zongzi.

It’s as if eating zongzi means you’ve truly celebrated the Dragon Boat Festival.

The taste of hometown zongzi that I can never savor,

It is an unrelenting longing for bygone days.

Sweet, salty, meaty, red date–flavored,

Triangular, rectangular, and square,

Chinese people can enjoy zongzi to their heart’s content,

Of course, the perennial debate over salty versus sweet zongzi between the north and south is always present,

No matter how much we argue about it, we still think our own is the best.

Every holiday, I long for my loved ones.

This is probably what missing one’s loved ones feels like.

The Dragon Boat Festival is epitomized by zongzi—tiny glutinous-rice parcels tightly bound together.

The Chinese people’s broad-mindedness and lofty aspirations are like zongzi leaves wrapping glutinous rice.

Inclusiveness binds everything together in unity and harmony.

Dragon Boat Festival

The first thing most people probably think of is eating zongzi.

That’s right—there’s a real sense of ritual about the Dragon Boat Festival.

Half of it was given by zongzi.

Hanging mugwort and sweet flag

The custom of decorating with various herbs and plants believed to ward off evil and disease during the Dragon Boat Festival has a long history. Among the festival’s key traditions is the practice of hanging mugwort and sweet flag. It is common to display a few sprigs of mugwort at the entrance of one’s home; thanks to its distinctive aroma, it is used to dispel illness, repel mosquitoes, and protect against evil influences.

Dragon Boat Festival sachet (five-poison avoidance bag)

Wearing scented sachets during the Dragon Boat Festival is an ancient custom and a traditional method of warding off the “five pests.” On this day, yang energy is at its peak, and all things flourish—making it the most potent time of year for medicinal herbs. The sachet is filled with eighteen kinds of Chinese medicinal herbs, including cinnabar, realgar, mugwort, sweet flag, honeysuckle, angelica, peppermint, and patchouli, symbolizing the idea of “trapping the five pests within the pouch so they cannot wreak havoc,” thereby repelling evil, preventing poisoning, and averting calamity. Wearing such a fragrant sachet not only helps to gather qi, calm the mind, open the orifices, sharpen the senses, dispel dampness, and invigorate the spleen, but also protects against evil, safeguards the body, eliminates epidemics, and offers antibacterial and antitoxic benefits—while serving as a decorative accessory as well!

Drink realgar wine

Realgar is a traditional medicinal herb. During the Dragon Boat Festival, the people of Longquan soak realgar in wine and then apply the realgar-infused wine to children’s ears, noses, foreheads, wrists, and ankles. It is said that this practice can keep mosquitoes, snakes, scorpions, centipedes, geckos, spiders, and other pests from biting or crawling on them.

Wishing you good health on the Dragon Boat Festival!