by Hortense Foster

Created on: June 11, 2009   Last Updated: September 09, 2009

The Chinese Dragon Festival is the longest festival in history. It is a lunar holiday, which occurs on the fifth day of lunar month. This holiday falls on May 28, 2009. To give workers a longer holiday so companies are adding Friday 29, in order for workers to have a long weekend.

Chinese people celebrate this as a time for protection from evil and disease for the entire year. It is a custom or practice to hang health herbs on the front door, consuming nutritious assortment of drinks. It is also said you will have a good year if one can stand an egg on its end at 12:00 noon.

The Duanwu Festival (The Chinese Dragon Festival) is celebrated by boat races; these boats are shaped like dragons. Drumbeats start these races as computers race for the finish line to be first. Port Chu Yuan is the person these dragon boat Festival racers are trying to rescue.In 277 B.C. Chu Yuan drowned the fifth day of lunar month.

Activities during Dragon Boat (the Duanwu Festival)

1. Be a spectator and watch the races.

2.Take part in eating a dish made of sticky rice combine with vegetables and steamed meat inside (Zongzi)bamboo leaves. This symbolizing the food people fed to fish in saving their loved one body.

3. Throw bamboo leaves filled with cooked rice into water.

4.Protection from evil and disease, by hanging healthy herbs on the front door.

5.Drinking concoctions made with nutritious.

6.Gather together to study poems of Qu Yuan.

7.Park carnival and a seminar focusing on folk customs, sponsored by Chinese capital.

8.Children wear scented sachets; this is to ward off evil spirits.

9.Drinking a spirit brewed with realgar powder.

10. Most important activity is the Dragon Boat Race

11.Popular games are played near houses.

For more than 20 centuries the Dragon boat race has taken place as part of the folk ritual in China. The dragon boat is a long narrow, canoe powered by human used in the race which originated in China over 2000 years ago. They are brightly painted and decorated; about 40 to 100 feet in length, the bow or head is shaped like a dragon, while the stern has a scaly tail. It takes up to 80 crew to power the boat; depending on the size more would be needed.

Of all the traditional and best known story of The Duanwu Festival, is that this festival celebrates the death by suicide of poet Qu Yan, a well known scholar and minister of the

Ancient Chu state during the Warring Period. To protect the traditions, Hunan Provincehas applied for the UNESCO status of the festival and poet Qu birthplace.

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