Dragon Boat Festival: A splash of heady fun
Print Edition
DRAGONS and evil spirits, sticky rice and potent herbs. Lu Feiran examines the threads that weave together to make the annual event such a beloved cultural ritual.
The annual Dragon Boat Festival, or duanwu jie, will be celebrated on June 2 this year, evoking thousands of years of culture and history.
The origin of the holiday, which is always falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, is lost in the mists of time. That leaves plenty of room for imaginative legends and stories. The most popular is that the event commemorates the death of the poet Qu Yuan, who drowned himself in the Miluo River in 278 BC.
The holiday that once symbolized mourning and fear of evil spirits has today become a joyous celebration of cultural heritage. People eat the traditional zongzi , or sticky rice snack. They burn wormwood at home to get rid of insects and other vermin. And they take to colorful boats decorated as dragons in races where splash is half the fun.
Zongzi
Zongzi is one of the most best-known Chinese snacks. They are made of glutinous rice stuffed with a variety of fillings and then wrapped in bamboo or other large flat leaves bound with string.
The snack has a history dating back about 4,000 years.
Legend has it that villagers unable to find Qu’s body invented zongzi and threw the snack into the river to feed the fish so they wouldn’t devour the body of the beloved poet. Nobody seems to know why they didn’t just use steamed bread or pancakes.
Whatever the details, references to zongzi appear in ancient texts. At first, the zongzi weren’t stuffed. They were made of steamed husked millet, wrapped in reed leaves that imparted a fragrance to the grain.
During the Jin Dynasty (256-420 AD), zongzi began to appear with stuffings, both savory and sweet. The variety of creative fillings increased over the years to include traditional red bean paste, pork, preserved dates, purple sweet potatoes, salted egg yolks and roast duck.
Fillings reflect regional tastes. In northern China, most families make sweet zongzi or just dip unfilled zongzi in sugar. In southern areas, savory zongzi are more popular.
It’s a bit of a reversal from usual eating habits, where southerners prefer sweeter foods and northerners tend to like their food less sweet.
Sachets
The fifth day of the fifth month was traditionally considered the most “toxic” day in the lunar calendar.
That concept probably is rooted in the insects, snakes and other vermin that appeared as summer set in. Of course, ancient people also lumped monsters and evil spirits into the mix of undesirables.
So sachets filled with herbal medicines became part of the Dragon Boat Festival tradition. The volatile oils emitted from sachets, generally as necklaces, were said to ward off all the evil influences. Many parents insisted that their children wear the sachets because youngsters are especially vulnerable to diseases. Chinese medicine pharmacies sell sachets around the time of the Dragon Boat Festival.
“This is a legacy that probably sprang from the beliefs of rural farmers,” said Chen Biao, director of the Shanghai Folk Culture Museum. “In modern times, the sachets regained popularity as a way of easing the pressures of society.”
Wormwood leaves and realgar wine
Wormwood leaves and realgar wine traditionally served the same function as sachets in warding off disease, insects and evil spirits.
In ancient times, people would drape wormwood leaves on their door frames or spray realgar wine on their windows.
In some areas, people also hung the wetland plant calamus, or sweet flag, on doorways because it was considered anathema to evil spirits. Ancient Chinese writers described calamus as a “sword” and said that hanging the plant along with garlic and dolls made of peachwood would cast out demons.
Realgar wine, whose name is of Arabic origin, was traditionally made from the soft mineral arsenic sulfide, mixed with rice liquor.
The wine is part of the “Madam White Snake” legend. The tale goes that a white snake spirit fell in love with a young man and married him. On the night of the Dragon Boat Festival, the couple drank a cup of realgar wine, but it led to a tragedy. The snake spirit lost her human form under the influence of the wine and her husband was scared to death by a giant white snake.
People no longer drink realgar wine in its original form because, when heated, it can become highly toxic.
But the arsenic base still works well in killing insects and other vermin.
Where to enjoy the Dragon Boat Festival in Minhang
Every year across the district, local communities and towns stage events to celebrate the festival. Families gather to make zongzi and friends paddle fiercely in dragon boat races on the Huangpu River.
Exhibitions will be held in Zhaojialou Ancient Town to show visitors how to make sachets and zongzi. Traditional Chinese operas will be staged retelling famous festival stories.
In the Gumei Community, the festival has become a focal point for displaying traditional Chinese culture. Women from the Qibao community will appear in the traditional long, slinky dress, giving photographers plenty of reasons to click the lens.
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