Beginning on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, people of several ethnic groups throughout China and the world celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival, especially in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The festivities vary from region to region, but they usually share several features. A memorial ceremony offering sacrifices to a local hero is combined with sporting events such as dragon boat Dragon Boat Racerace and willow shooting； feasts of rice dumplings, eggs and realgar wine； and folk entertainments including opera, song and unicorn dances.
The hero who is celebrated varies by region: the romantic poet Qu Yuan (340-278 B.C.) is venerated in south China’s Hubei Province and Hunan Province, and Wu Zixu (559-484 B.C.), a strategist said to have died while slaying a dragon, in southwest China’s Guizhou Province. Participants also ward off evil during the festival by bathing in flower-scented water, wearing five-color silk, hanging plants such as moxa and calamus over their doors, and pasting Chinese paper cuts in their windows.
The Dragon Boat Festival strengthens bonds within families and establishes a harmonious relationship between humanity and nature. It also encourages the expression of imagination and creativity, contributing to a vivid sense of cultural identity.
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