Happy Duan Wu Festival

Duan Wu Festival, or Dragon Boat Festival, commemorates the death of Qu Yuan (340-278 BC), a Chinese patriotic poet from southern Chu during the Warring States Period is on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar.

Qu Yuan was a minister in the state of Chu, descended of nobility and a champion of political loyalty and truth eager to maintain the state's sovereignty. He advocated a policy of alliance with the other kingdoms of the period against the hegemonic state of Qin, which threatened to dominate them all. The Chu king, however, fell under the influence of other corrupt, jealous ministers who slandered Qu Yuan, and banished his most loyal counsellor.

In his exile, Qu Yuan returned first to his family's home town and spent much of this time collecting legends and rearranging folk odes while travelling the countryside, producing some of the greatest poetry in Chinese literature while expressing his fervent love for his state and his deepest concern for her future. His works are mostly found in an anthology of poetry known as Chu Ci.

In 278 BC, learning of the capture of his country's capital, Ying, by General Bai Qi of the state of Qin, Qu Yuan wrote the lengthy poem of lamentation called "Lament for Ying" and later to have waded into the Miluo river in today's Hunan Province holding a great rock in order to commit ritual suicide as a form of protest against the corruption of the era.

The common people, learning of his suicide, rushed out in their fishing boats to the middle of the river and tried desperately to save him. They beat drums and splashed water with their paddles in order to keep the fish and evil spirits from his body, and later on, even scattered rice into the water to prevent him from suffering hunger and also to feed the fishes in the river so that they would not devour his body.

However, late one night, the spirit of Qu Yuan appeared before his friends and told them that the rice meant for him was being intercepted by a huge river dragon. He asked his friends to wrap their rice into three-cornered silk packages to ward off the dragon. This has been a traditional food ever since known as Zong Zi, although the lumps of rice are wrapped in bamboo leaves instead of silk. The act of searching for his body in the boats gradually turned into the tradition of the Dragon boat race, which is held every year on the day of his suicide.

People today still eat delicious rice dumplings (Zong Zi) and participate in dragon boat races to commemorate him on the Duan Wu festival.