The Duan Wu Festival is known as one of the three major religious holidays in China, together with The Chinese New Year and the Mid-Autumn Festival.
It is said that this festival started as an occasion for driving off evil spirits and pestilence and for finding peace in one's life, knowing that summer is the time when the diseases easily spread. After years this occasion was enriched with the legend of Qu Yuan (Ch'u Yuan -屈原).
Qu Yuan was a famous Chinese scholar-statesman served the King of Chu during the Warring States period. Although at forst as a loyal minister Qu Yuan enjoyed full confidence and respect of his sovereign, the intrigues of his adversaries discredited him bringing him in disfavor. Qu Yuan was never able to regain the emperor's favor again and decided on the fifth day of the fifth moon in the year 295 B.C., at the age of 37, to clasp a stone to his chest and plunge into the Milo River in the Hunan Province as a protest to his emperor. As he was a loved and respected minister, the people in the nearby area jumped into boats in the attempt to rescue him and this is how a part of the Dragon Boat Festival was born. It is also said that the villagers threw rice into the water in the memory of the dead hero, but as the fish has eaten it, they wrapped the rice into bamboo leaves and like this started the tradition of the Tzungtzu dumplings. Today the recipe has evolved and it contains rice wrapped in bamboo leaves, stuffed with ham, beans, bean paste, salted egg yokes, sausages, nuts, and/or vegetables.
Parts of the Duan Wu Festival are the customs of protecting the families from ills and misfortune. From which we can number the hanging of calamus and artemisia above the doors, both as a decoration and as a preventive against pestilence; the drinking of realgar in wine which supposedly relieves the effects of poisons accumulated in human bodies; eating other customary foods of the season, all of which are alleged to have medical value, include garlic, pickled vegetables, greens and yellow croaker (a type of fish); the painting of the ideograph Wang (King) on the foreheads of children with realgar or cinnabar, and the fastening of amulets containing spices or medicines to the buttons of their clothing.
The Dragon Boat Festival is a very rich, colorful and entertaining experience which manages to put in touch visitors around the world with the rich Chinese cultural heritage.