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According to the Chinese traditional lunar calendar, June 6 is the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, also the Dragon Boat Festival. On this day, Chinese eat rice dumplings, race dragon boat, hang up mugwort plants, wear perfume pouches, and drink realgar liquor.
According to the older, we eat rice dumplings and race dragon boat in remembrance of the great patriotic poet Qu Yuan in ancient times; we hang up mugwort plants, wear perfume pouches and drink realgar liquor in order to ward off evil spirits.
Qu Yuan was a man of the state of Chu in the late Warring States, although he pledged allegiance to King Huaiwang of Chu, but suffered many exclusions of the villains that time. Depressed and frustrated, Qu Yuan drowned himself in a river on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, to demonstrate his firm determination. To show their grief, the local people were rowing on the river at the fifth day of the fifth lunar month ever since, and the spontaneous celebrations gradually developed to the dragon-boat race. The people that time were afraid of that the fish in the river would nibble up the body of Qu Yuan, then they threw sticky rice to feed the fish, and this activity evolved to the custom of eating rice dumplings.
The Dragon Boat Festival is also a summer festival keeping the plague out. people in civil society are accustomed to hanging up the healing mugwort plants on the door, wearing the perfume pouches to denote exclusion of evils, and drinking realgar liquor to remove poisons from the body. In essence, these traditional customs are activities clearly beneficial for health.
In Yiwu, every household all need to eat rice dumplings. Erdogan, the French businessman in Yiwu said that he didn't know what the Dragon Boat Festival meant until he married a Chinese wife. "According to her introduction, Chinese will eat rice dumplings, race dragon boats, hang up mugwort plants, wear perfume pouches, and drink realgar liquor."
As a matter of fact, hanging up mugwort plants can be usually seen in the towns and villages in Yiwu. But the development of era and the change in people's lifestyle has resulted in the vanishing of certain of customs as drinking the realgar liquor.
At present, the "Chinese Dragon Boat Festival" is a statutory public holiday, and listed in the World Intangible Cultural Heritage list.
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