Dragon boat Festival
The Dragon Boat Festival is one of three major Chinese festival, along with the Spring and Moon Festival. Of the three, it is possibly the oldest, dating back to the Warring States Period in 227B.C. The festival commemorates Qu Yuan, a minister in the service of Chu Emperor.
Despairing over corruption at court, Qu threw himself into a river. Townspeople jumped into a river. Townspeople jumped into their boats and tried in vain to save him. Then, hoping to distract hungry fish from his body, the people scattered rice on the water.
Over the years, the story of Qu’s demise transformed into the traditions of racing dragon boats and eating zongzi——a kind of
ricing wrapped in bamboo leaves.The races have certainly captured the imagination of people from all over the world.
Every spring there are nearly 60 dragon boat
races held outside of China in cities from Vancouver to Sydney. Canada alone has nearby 50 dragon boat teams and Germany has nearly 30.
So what is it about the Dragon Boat Festival that appeals to foreigners?“It’s an unusual sport,” says one racer from Germany.“It's not like everybody’s doing it. That's one of the reasons that there's such great team spirit in a dragon boat team——everybody feels like we’re doing something special.”