Yichun Festival Customs: "Stuttering Zongzi and Supporting Bamboo Rafts" Dragon Boat Festival Notes Bronze Drum Hakka Customs The fifth day of the fifth lunar month is a traditional Chinese folk festival - the Dragon Boat Festival. The Dragon Boat Festival has been celebrated by the Chinese for more than two thousand years. Due to the vast territory, numerous ethnic groups, and many stories and legends, the traditional customs have different contents. Tonggu County, Jiangxi Province, is located in the northwest of Jiangxi Province and belongs to the Yichun region. In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, a large number of Hakkas from eastern Guangdong and western Fujian immigrated here, resulting in a situation where the original residents of Tonggu and the Hakkas lived together. Today's Tonggu County still retains this simple Hakka folk custom. Jiangxi Tonggu is known as the Dragon Boat Festival, also known as the May Festival and the Dragon Boat Festival. So what is the custom of celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival with bronze drums? Zhu Keshan, a Hakka folklore expert, said: "Every household has to put moxa (wormwood) and calamus in front of the door, eat rice dumplings, dyed red salted eggs, hold bamboo rafts or row dragon boats. On the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, realgar water should be sprinkled around the house at noon (11:00-12:00), and soybeans cooked with licorice can be eaten to clear away fire and poison. Applying realgar water, Hakka people pay attention to hygiene. In addition to taking baths at ordinary times, they will boil the fruits of moxa, calamus, and maple trees and use maple balls to cool down and then use them to bathe. Of course, relatives and friends give each other food. Dining together is also a must. " Tonggu County, located in northwest Jiangxi, is the place where three rivers meet. The Dingjiang River, Jinsha River and Huangxi River originating from Dawei Mountain all flow through here. Therefore, during the Dragon Boat Festival, local Hakka people like to hold bamboo rafts. . Holding a bamboo raft is similar to dragon boat rowing, but its production is simpler. Seven or eight moso bamboos are cut and tied together with bamboo strips. Of course, there are also exquisite ones: the moso bamboo used to make bamboo rafts needs to be scraped off with a knife. When the drainage volume is basically the same, the weight of the bamboo rafts is reduced. In addition, the bamboo tail in the front is raised, so there is naturally less resistance when paddling forward. One way to bend the bamboo tail is to roast it over a fire. After roasting until soft, slowly bend it, then press it with a towel soaked in cold water for a while, bake it for a while, bend it for a while, and press it for a while. The bamboo tail will be bent to the satisfaction of the row leader. After the bamboo rafts are completed, the workers of the bronze drums begin to line up. Along the way, they can judge where there are reefs and where there are dangerous shoals, so as to grasp the tide. The confluence of three rivers in Tonggu County is called Sanjiangkou. Before the 1950s, it was a stone beach with mountains of tree branches or tied wooden rafts and bamboo rafts piled here. In the past, when there were no roads, these wooden rafts and bamboo rafts themselves were both transportation tools and goods. Therefore, many bamboo trees were transported by water to Xiushui, Jiujiang City, and then to various cities along the Yangtze River. The bronze drum arranger, the tinsmith of Fengxin and the cobbler of Gao'an are the three famous heroes in central Jiangxi. A legend is written by Ma Xiucai, "A Beach Song to Wucheng", which tells the high skill of the bronze drum arranger at that time. The courageous spirit of a man. The song goes: One pole crossed Linggong Port, went down to Xutan and then to West Beach. The dangerous shoal curved sharply for 300 miles. Every dangerous shoal must be remembered clearly. How many beach bends are there? I bent and stretched my hands, and sang all the beach songs. In front of me was Wucheng. During the Dragon Boat Festival, like most areas in Jiangxi, Tonggu Hakka people like to eat glutinous rice dumplings with alkaline water added. This is due to three reasons. The first is that the color is beautiful. After the glutinous rice is alkalized, it becomes golden and very beautiful. The second is that they are delicious and the rice dumplings are not that greasy, and the third is that they last a long time and are easy to eat on the go. Alkaline water is homemade by the Hakka people. Zhu Keshan, a Hakka folk custom expert, said: "There are two ways to make alkaline water: one is to boil the ashes of Tonggu Hakka called early straw burning into boiling water to make alkaline water. The other is to make alkaline water. The method is very unique. Our Tonggu uses a branch called Huang Jing to boil water in a pot to make alkaline water. In May, the weather starts to get hot, which makes it easy to cause heat stroke and other diseases. Eating rice dumplings with alkali made from yellow wattle can prevent such diseases." Nowadays, people still eat rice dumplings during the Dragon Boat Festival, but there are not many people holding bamboo rafts. In order to recreate the beautiful scene of the Tonggu Hakka people eating rice dumplings and supporting bamboo rafts during the Dragon Boat Festival, the Tonggu County People's Government has taken a series of measures. Wang Haiquan, a reporter from Tonggu County People's Broadcasting Station, said: "The county government has built granite bricks on both sides of the county river. The embankment is 6 meters high. In addition, a rubber dam is being built not far downstream of Sanjiangkou. When the water is high, the dam can be reduced and shortened to achieve the purpose of releasing water. When the water is low, the Sanjiangkou is used to store water. The bend of the river forms a huge U-shape with the other two rivers - Jinsha River and Dingjiang River. At that time, the Tonggu Hakka people can go around the 'U' shape and eat rice dumplings while holding bamboo rafts.

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