I. Customs of the Dragon Boat Festival

1, Dragon Boat Racing:

Racing dragon boats, is the main custom of the Dragon Boat Festival.

2, eat zongzi:

Duanwu Festival to eat zongzi, which is another traditional custom of the Chinese people.

3, wear scented sachets:

Duanwu Festival children wear scented sachets, legend has the meaning of the evil spirits to drive away the plague, is actually used for lapel head embellishment decoration. The scented capsule inside the cinnabar, andrographis, incense medicine, wrapped in silk cloth, fragrant, and then the five-color silk string buckle into a rope, for a variety of different shapes, knotted into a string, colorful, exquisite and lovely.

4, hanging moxa calamus:

Folk proverb: "Qingming willow, Dragon Boat Festival moxa". In the Dragon Boat Festival, people put the insertion of moxa and calamus as one of the important content. Every family sweeps the court, with calamus, moxa inserted in the door eyebrow, hanging in the hall. And with calamus, moxa, pomegranate, garlic, dragon boat flower, made of human or tiger-shaped, known as Ai man, Ai tiger; made of wreaths, ornaments, beautiful and fragrant, women compete to wear, to drive miasma.

Two, the Dragon Boat Festival stories

1, in honor of Wu Zixu

The second legend of the Dragon Boat Festival, widely circulated in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, is to commemorate the Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC - 476 years ago) of Wu Zixu. Wu Zixu, a native of Chu, had his father and brother killed by the king of Chu. Later, Wu Zixu abandoned his darkness and ran to Wu to help Wu conquer Chu, and entered the capital of Chu, Ying City, in five battles.

When King Ping of Chu died, Zixu dug up his grave and flogged his body to avenge the death of his father and brother. After the death of King Helu of Wu, his son Fu Chai succeeded to the throne, Wu army morale is high, won a hundred battles, Vietnam was defeated, King Goujian of Yue asked for peace, Fu Chai allowed it. Zixu suggested that the state of Yue should be completely destroyed, Fu-chai did not listen, Wu Dazai, bribed by the state of Yue, slandered and framed Zixu, Fu-chai believed it, gave Zixu the sword, Zixu died of this.

Zixu was a loyal man, and he was very happy to die. Before he died, he said to his neighbors, "When I die, I will dig out my eyes and hang them on the east gate of Wu Jing to see the Yue army enter the city to destroy Wu", and then he cut his own throat, and Fu Chai was furious, and he ordered to take the body of Zixu and put it into a leather bag to throw it into a big river in May 5. The Duanwu Festival is also said to be a day to commemorate Wu Zixu.

2, in honor of Cao E

The third legend of the Dragon Boat Festival commemorates Cao E, a filial daughter who saved her father's life and threw herself into the river in the Eastern Han Dynasty (23--220 AD). Cao E is a Shangyu people in the Eastern Han Dynasty, his father drowned in the river, a few days to see the body, the filial daughter of Cao E was only fourteen years old, day and night along the river crying. After seventeen days, she threw herself into the river on May 5, and carried her father's body out five days later. The story was passed down as a myth, and the story was passed down to the governor of the county, who made Dushan erect a monument for it, and had his disciple Handan Chun write a eulogy in praise of it.

The tomb of Cao E, a filial daughter, is located in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, and the monument to Cao E is said to have been written by Wang Yi of the Jin Dynasty. To commemorate Cao E's filial piety, a Cao E Temple was built at the place where Cao E threw herself into the river, the village where she lived was renamed Cao E Town, and the place where Cao E was martyred by her father was named Cao E River.

The Dragon Boat Festival, which originated in China, was initially a festival in which ancient ancestors used dragon boat races as a form of sacrifice to the dragon ancestor. Because of the Warring States period of the Chu poet Qu Yuan in the Dragon Boat Festival jumped Miluo River to kill himself, after the Dragon Boat Festival as a festival to commemorate Qu Yuan; individual places also commemorate Wu Zixu, Cao'e and Jie Zi Tui and other sayings.

Overall, the Dragon Boat Festival originated in the Dragon Totem rituals, the Dragon Boat Festival as a "bad month and bad day" in the north, injected into the summer seasonal "disease prevention" fashion, attached to commemorate the commemoration of Qu Yuan jumped into the Miluo River to kill himself and other historical figures commemorative content, and finally formed the Dragon Boat Festival nowadays cultural connotations.