2. Hanging Acorus calamus: Hanging Acorus calamus is also the custom of Duanzhou people to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival. Every Dragon Boat Festival, people will find a bunch of fresh wormwood or calamus to hang on their doorstep. In the traditional concept, wormwood can welcome blessings and calamus can ward off evil spirits. Others will go to the Xijiang River to call the river water and boil it with mugwort leaves for the whole family to take a bath. This custom is also called "washing dragon boat water", which means praying for well-being.
3. Dragon Boat Race: Jinli Town is a famous "hometown of dragon boats" and one of the earliest places in Guangdong Province to hold folk dragon boat races. The dragon boat race has a history of more than 200 years, and it is known as "Guangzhou sees the flower market and Jinli sees the dragon boat". Dragon boat has become the most unique cultural symbol in Jinli.
4. Drink Pu wine and eat wormwood: The Dragon Boat Festival in Guang Ningxian is like the "Sanitation and Epidemic Prevention Festival", and many customs are closely related to sanitation. For example, Duanzhou is used to hanging wormwood and calamus on the portal. In some places, they also drink Pu wine and sprinkle it around the house to avoid snakes and scorpions. Guangning people wrap zongzi on the Dragon Boat Festival, and at the same time use wormwood as paste, which means to drive away poisonous gas and avoid plague. They believe that the Dragon Boat Festival originated from the "summer solstice", so there is a saying in Guangning that "quilts are not collected until May Festival".
5. Worship the Dragon Mother and pray: The Dragon Boat Festival holiday coincides with the birthday of the Dragon Mother (from the first day of May to the eighth day of August in the lunar calendar). Every day, the Dragon Mother Temple in Deqing has wonderful performances such as dragon and lion dances, as well as a dragon mother praying and fasting feast, which is very lively. Every year, on the Dragon Mother's birthday, many good men and women come thousands of miles to make wishes and realize them, which makes the Dragon Mother's reputation spread far and wide and makes the Dragon Mother Temple in Deqing more magnificent and effective. According to legend, there is a custom of bathing and changing clothes for the Dragon Mother's birthday, as well as folk customs such as grabbing the spear head, touching the dragon bed and racing dragon boats.
6. Collecting herbs to make "afternoon tea": Dragon Boat Festival is also called "Medicine Festival". In ancient China, it was considered that the fifth day of the fifth lunar month was the most prosperous day in a year, and it was a "poison day". Therefore, every Dragon Boat Festival, the weather begins to be hot and dry, mosquitoes and flies breed, and the plague is easy to spread. Making tea at noon is one of the prevention methods to cut to the chase. On the Dragon Boat Festival, local people will bring laundry baskets or sacks, pick herbs in the wild and brew "afternoon tea" with herbs. The local people think that the herbs picked on the Dragon Boat Festival have the best effect, and drinking "afternoon tea" can drive away the foul gas, clear away heat and toxic materials, and prevent diseases and treat diseases.
7. Banquets send zongzi to each other: in Huaiji, there are upper and lower points, and the time of Dragon Boat Festival is different. The first half is mostly on the first day of May, and the second half is mostly on the fifth day of May, so there is a custom of going to relatives and friends' houses to eat Yuanxiao. On the Dragon Boat Festival, Huaiji people will slaughter chickens and ducks, hold banquets for guests, and give each other zongzi as gifts, which means good luck. During the Dragon Boat Festival, men in some villages and towns will go to the stream to wash their hair, indicating that they will wash away the filth and grow up healthily. Xiashuai Township in Huaiji County is even more special. The villagers here have a special custom of curing raw meat, and eat raw meat during the Dragon Boat Festival.