Dragon Boat Festival

The Dragon Boat Festival or Duanwu 端午节 (Duānwǔ jié) is held on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month — late May or June — hence the older name “Double Fifth”. It is a public holiday in mainland China.

The story attached to the day is that of Qu Yuan, the poet of Chu who drowned himself in the Miluo River. Boats went out to look for him; rice was thrown in so that the fish would not eat his body. The rice became zongzi — glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves, with savoury or sweet fillings that change from province to province. The boats became the dragon boat races that now draw crowds on rivers and in cities that have no river to speak of.

Realgar wine, sachets of mugwort and calamus hung on doors, and baths scented with herbs belong to the same day: the fifth month was held to be a month of disease, and the festival is as much a turning of the season as a commemoration. The races are what a visitor sees; the zongzi are what a family cooks. It is a public holiday, like Qingming and the Mid-Autumn Festival — the three traditional days that only became official holidays in 2008.