Dragon Boat Festival · Traditional Festival Feature

The Dragon Boat Festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, also called Duan Yang or Chong Wu. In the old reckoning, the fifth month of high summer was the "evil month," and the fifth day of that month the "evil day of the evil month": heat rising, the five venomous creatures abroad—and so the ancients hung mugwort and calamus at their doors, wore fragrant pouches, and tied five-colored threads, to ward off plague and calamity. This is the festival's oldest ground, found in the Eastern Han Customs and Customs: "On the fifth day of the fifth month, tying five-colored threads to the arm wards off weapons and ghosts and keeps one from fever and plague." Thereafter the story of Qu Yuan grew ascendant: Qu Yuan, a great minister of the state of Chu in the Warring States, loyal yet slandered, clasped a stone and cast himself into the Miluo River on the fifth day of the fifth month. The people grieved, and cast rice in bamboo tubes into the water as an offering; in later ages, wrapped rice dumplings and racing boats became the memorial—a story found in the Records of the Grand Historian and in the Southern Liang Continued Records of the Strange. Other regions honor Wu Zixu of Wu or the filial daughter Cao E; the diversity of cults shows the Dragon Boat Festival to be a festival built up layer upon layer from many folk customs.

The most spectacular custom is the dragon boat race. In the lands of Wu and Yue, dragon boats had already been used to worship river gods since pre-Qin times; once Qu Yuan's story prevailed, the race was given the meaning of "summoning the loyal soul": drums thundering, oars flashing, dozens straining in one boat, the dragon's head held high—the most ardent rite of the water-country summer. On shore, households hang mugwort and calamus over their lintels; the herbs are pungent and strong, their scent driving off insects and foul vapors. Children wear fragrant pouches and five-colored threads; elders dip a finger in realgar wine and paint the character "king" on a child's forehead—all to ward off harm and shield the body. In the water-scarce north, the customs differ—shooting willows, the hundred-grass duel, polo on horseback—but the heart of blessing is one.

At the table, the zongzi takes pride of place. The dumpling was anciently called jiao shu, glutinous rice wrapped in reed leaves: savory in the south, sweet in the north—Jiaxing's fresh-pork zongzi, Cantonese wrapped-leaf zongzi, southern Fujian's roasted-pork zongzi, rich and unctuous; the north's date and sweet-bean pastes, clear, sweet, soft. Jiangsu and Zhejiang keep the "five yellows" of the festival—yellow croaker, yellow eel, cucumber, salted egg yolk, and yellow wine, yellow to quell the five venoms; and the Gaoyou salted duck egg is a seasonal delicacy, its red oil brimming the moment one taps the shell open.

Verses for the Dragon Boat Festival, each in its own mood:

Wen Tianxiang, "Impromptu on the Dragon Boat Festival" (Duan Wu Ji Shi): 五月五日午,赠我一枝艾. 故人不可见,新知万里外. — At noon on the fifth of the fifth month, a sprig of mugwort was given to me. Old friends I cannot see; new friends lie ten thousand li away.

Zhang Lei, "In Response to a Dragon Boat Poem" (He Duan Wu): 竞渡深悲千载冤,忠魂一去讵能还. 国亡身殒今何有,只留离骚在世间. — The racing boats carry the deep sorrow of a thousand years of wrong; the loyal soul, once gone, can never return. With the state fallen and the body spent, what remains? Only the Li Sao, left to the world.

Lu You, "On the Double Fifth of the Yimao Year" (Yi Mao Chong Wu Shi): 粽包分两髻,艾束著危冠. 旧俗方储药,羸躯亦点丹. — The zongzi is wrapped in twin topknots; mugwort binds the tall hat. Following the old custom, I store herbs and paint cinnabar on my frail frame.

The dragon is both water-god and auspicious beast; the dragon boat race greets the dragon and honors the water with jubilant motion, praying for wind and rain in season. Mugwort and calamus are the plain wisdom of plants against pestilence: our forebears knew nothing of germs, yet they knew how to guard their lintels with fragrance. The five-colored threads answer the five elements and pray for peace in the five directions; and the zongzi cast into the water wraps a weight of remembrance between leaf and rice, undissolved for a thousand years. The Dragon Boat Festival is thus at once ardent and tender—one face drums and clamor, the other stitching the words "peace and health" into every pouch and every thread.

In keeping with the twenty-four solar terms, the Dragon Boat Festival usually falls between Grain in Ear and the Summer Solstice. At Grain in Ear, "the grain with awns can be sown," the farm year is at its busiest, and high summer begins; at the Summer Solstice, yang reaches its zenith and yin is born—the year's fullest light, and the hinge of its turning. The festival stands between the two, answering the ancient wisdom of "warding off in season": when yang qi is at its height, balance is needed, and so mugwort is hung, pouches worn, jiao shu eaten, to nourish body and mind—turning reverence for the seasons into a way of living passed from hand to hand.