The Dragon Boat Festival is held on the 5th of May of the China lunar calendar every year. Generally, besides eating zongzi, there is also an important activity, that is, dragon boat race, which has become a tradition. So why race the dragon boat? Let's have a look.
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In memory of Qu Yuan: Dragon boat racing is the main custom of the Dragon Boat Festival. It is said that after the death of Qu Yuan, the people of Chu were very sad and flocked to the Miluo River to pay their respects to Qu Yuan. The fisherman paddled the boat and fished for his real body back and forth on the river. They scrambled to catch up with Dongting Lake, but there was no trace. Then they row a dragon boat on May 5th every year to commemorate it, in order to prevent fish from eating Qu Yuan's body.
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Legend has it that a long time ago, there was no river in Zou Wei, only a small and dirty ditch. One day, a fisherman caught a small snake in a ditch. The fisherman felt sorry for it, touched its scales and put it back in the ditch. Who knows that the nine scales suddenly fell, and the little snake danced and turned into a little dragon. The fisherman inadvertently opened the Millennium shackles on Xiaolong. In order to thank the fisherman, Xiaolong kept turning around in the ditch, spouting water from his mouth and pouring it into the small ditch. Slowly, the small ditch became a big river (now Qingshui River in Zou Wei), which brought a bumper harvest to Zou Wei. In order to commemorate this dragon, people call the villages along the river Longtouzhai, Shanglongshou and other villages. On the day when the dragon ascended to heaven, that is, the Dragon Boat Festival, a dragon boat race was held to celebrate.
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Pan Hu in Yuanling evokes spirits and says: Long before Qu Yuan, there were dragon boats in Yuanling. Yuanling Dragon Boat originated in ancient times, and the object of sacrifice was Pan Hu, the ancestor of the five rivers. Pan Hu once settled in Banxi Cave in Yuanling, and gave birth to six children and six daughters. The children married and multiplied into six ethnic groups: Miao, Yao, Dong, Tu, She and Li. After Pan Hu's death, six tribes feasted on the wizard and invited God to bring him back to life. Because of the dense mountains and rivers in Yuanling, the wizard didn't know where his soul had fallen, so he asked all ethnic groups to build dragon boats and look for shouts by stream and river, which eventually evolved into a witch worship activity of rowing and evoking souls. Yuanling Dragon Boat originated 5,000 years ago, more than 3,000 years earlier than the statement commemorating Qu Yuan.
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The whole dragon boat race has a set of strict procedures and ceremonies. Every year, one month before the Dragon Boat Festival, the contestants have to undergo strict training. Before entering the water for training, they should set a good day in the village, and then choose an old man with high prestige as a representative to make the finishing touch of the dragon boat. As soon as the set time arrived, the village coach (that is, the coach) took out the dragon tail buried in Sha Tin in previous years. This is called "starting the dragon god".
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Wash and dry the dragon tail, carry it back to the ancestral hall, repair the damaged and incomplete parts, and paint the dragon tail with bright pigments to draw a new dragon forest, which is called "wearing new clothes" Finally, the dragon tails are connected and merged into a big dragon boat that can carry 50 or 60 people. On the day of launching training, the auspicious day is chosen as "picking green", that is, the materials prepared in advance for picking green, such as citronella, grapefruit leaves or wampee leaves, lettuce, etc., are tied together, and then citronella is wrapped around the dragon boat mouth, and the prepared food is used to worship the dragon god, which means that the dragon god can eat enough and sprint energetically, and at the same time, it also protects the safety of rowers.