The Dragons of Duanwu

Occurring on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, Duanwu, or the Double Fifth Festival is the traditional celebration of China’s summer solstice, known in the West as the annual Dragon Boat Festival. The modern holiday has many origins that came together centuries ago as a unified holiday, though it was not recognized in the People’s Republic of China until 2008. Culturally, it is celebrated all over the world.

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Duanwu is comprised of three main activities: eating zongzi, drinking realgar wine and racing dragon boats. Zongzi are rice dumplings wrapped in flat leaves like bamboo and reed, traditionally eaten during this festival to commemorate Qu Yuan, the poet and minister of the Chu royal house. The story goes that Qu Yuan committed suicide in despair after failing to protect the capital city of Ying. The people who still admired him despite his failings raced out in boats to save his body, throwing packets of rice in the water to prevent the fish from consuming his body. This legend supposedly gave rise to the tradition of dragon boats, now raced in observance of Duanwu.

© Guangliang Huo | Dreamstime

The Qu Yuan story is followed in most of modern China, but similar tales exist in other regions like Wu Zixu in the Jiangsu Province and Cao E in Zhejiang. Taiwan celebrates the holiday as Poet’s Day, commemorating Qu Yuan as China’s first poet. Duanwu is popular with Chinese communities all over the world, like Philadelphia’s renowned Dragon Boat Festival, held on the Schuylkill River.