The Sad Story about Qu Yuan

中文版 Chinese>>>

page 1 2 3

       In China, the Dragon Boat Festival memorializes the Chinese patriotic poet Qu Yuan  (340 BC-278 BC or 343-290 B.C.), who committed suicide by jumping into the river after tying himself with big rock on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month.

  Qu Yuan was the number one advisor of the kingdom of Chu. But people were jealous his position and gossiped behind him. The king wouldn't take his advice in the end and was killed by the enemy of neighbor kingdom. The new king continued to enjoy the luxury life and didn't like Qu Yuan either. Later, Qu Yuan was exiled. He wrote many patriotic poems after then.

       Qu Yuan met a fisherman, who never cared about the country and quite satisfied his life. Chiu Yuan thought that the king wouldn't run the country,  people only cared about themselves, nobody concern about the future of the country and to live is meaningless. So he killed himself by drowning himself in the river. Many fishermen tried to rescue him, but the body is never found. Fishermen worried that fish would eat his body. So they threw food into the river to feed the fish. Plus, they tried to scare fish away by splashing the water with their paddles and beating the drums on the long narrow boats.

     Then the dragon was added into the story. Fishermen believed there was a water-dragon under the river. One man poured down a big jar of strong yellow wine (made of rice). Later, a drunken dragon-like fish floated on the river. One piece of Qu Yuan's clothing was found in-between the whisker of the water-dragon.

The Incense Bag

         Many contagious disease and plague had found in the 5th lunar month in the Chinese history. Besides putting the Acorus and Artemisia on the doors or windows, Chinese make the incense bag and hang on the neck to prevent from contagious disease and keep evil spirit away.

     The incense bag are made by hand. Chinese put the powder of Acorus and Artemisia with some other fragrance stuff into different kind of sewing bags. Therefore the incense bag can prevent an epidemic as the leaves of Acorus and Artemisia. The popular incense bags was 12 horoscope animals. Today, we can find many different auspicious symbols, many other animals, fish, flower, bird, even the cartoon characters. Long time ago, Chinese women liked to make incense bag for children.

The Dragon Boat

      The custom of Dragon Boat Race might begin from the southern China. They selected the 5rh lunar day of the 5th lunar month as the totem ceremony. The dragon was the main symbol on the totem, because Chinese thought they were son of dragon. They also made dragon-like canoe. Later, Chinese connected this custom with Duan-Wu festival. Since this was the event only in the southern China. This might be why Dragon Boat Race doesn't that popular in entire China today. But we can see yearly Dragon Boat Race events in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The picture shows a person lies on the top of dragon head of the boat to prepare to catch the flag of target to win the race.

      Now, the Dragon Boat Race becomes an international event. This sport is popular in USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, Taiwan, Honk Hong, Singapore etc. Some organization's events aren't held around the Dragon Boat Festival. Some are in July, August or September. You need to check their websites for the schedules.