Tuesday, June 19, 2007

19-06-07 is 端午节

Dragon Boat Festival (端午节, Duānwū Jié) is a traditional Chinese festival held on the fifth day of the fifth month (五月初五) of the Chinese calendar.


The exact origins of this festival is unclear, but one traditional view holds that the festival memorializes the Chinese poet Qu Yuan (屈原). 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 (用竹叶包裹的米食- 粽子) into the river to feed the fish so they would not eat Qu Yuan's body.

They also sat on long, narrow paddle boats called dragon boats (賽龍船), and tried to scare the fish away by the thundering sound of drums aboard the boat and the fierce looking carved dragon head on the boat's prow.

Other thoughts are that after Qu Yuan committed suicide, that because the people loved him so much, they raced out to recover his body, and the races signify the boats skimming across the water to find him.

However, researches have also revealed that the festival is also a celebration that is characteristic of ancient Chinese agrarian society: the celebration of the harvest of winter wheat, because similar celebrations had long existed in many other parts of China where Qu Yuan was not known. As interactions between Chinese residing in different regions increased, these similar festivals were eventually merged.

端午节的传说故事有: 屈原投江 ; 曹娥尋父屍 ; 白蛇傳 ; 伍子胥的忌日

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