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293
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 Chinese
Culture>> Traditional
Chinese Festivals |
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What is the
origin of the Dragon Boat Festival?
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The
Dragon Boat Festival or Duanwu Festival
commemorates Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet from
the State of Chu during the Warring States
Period. There Qu Yuan proposed a series
of progressive reforms, including domestic
political reforms and a legal system set-up;
but forces of corruption, represented by
Jin Shang who opposed Qu Yuan, led the king
not to trust him. Qu Yuan had to leave the
capital and began a wandering life. With
patriotic fervor, Qu Yuan produced many
odes to display his concern for the fate
of his state and people. In 278 B.C., when
the Qin troops stormed the capital, and
the downfall of Chu was expected at any
moment, he took a rock in his arms and drowned
himself in the Miluo River near the present-day
Changsha. He chose not to live and see that
his state to be vanquished by the enemy.
When the news of his death came, the local
people rushed to the scene and rowed boats
along the river in an attempt to find his
remains; but they were never recovered.
The people of Chu mourned his death, and
every year afterwards they threw bamboo
tubes filled with rice into the river as
a sacrifice to him. This is supposed to
be the origin of the custom of rowing dragon
boats and eating zongzi on the Dragon Boat
Festival.
This
article by Yang Tianqing and Daniel Kister.
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