Dragon Boat Festival

5th of 5th Month of Chinese Calender

It is in memory of a great patriot poet of the State of Chu during the warring States period (475-221 B.C.), Qu Yuan who drowned himself to protest his emperor who gave in to the bully State of Chin. To avoid the fish to consume his body, people of Chin launched their boats and threw rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves into the river where he was drowned to feed the fish. People today still eat the bamboo-leaf rice dumplings (zong zi). Teams of dragon boats, similar to long canoes, train for weeks for the contests in this day, not only in China, but also in other Asian countries with Chinese populations.