Jun 07, 2019
Dragon Boat Festival 2019
This Doodle’s Key Themes
Today’s Doodle celebrates the Dragon Boat Festival, also known as Duanwu Jie, which begins on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar. The exciting three-day event has occurred for over 2,000 years, and 10 years ago was inscribed on UNESCO’s list representing the intangible cultural heritage of humanity.
The festival’s practice of racing boats originated from stories of people rowing on China’s Miluo River to try and rescue the ancient poet Qu Yuan from drowning during the third century B.C. Since then, the races have grown in popularity and spread throughout the world.
The boats are traditionally made of teak wood and can range up to 100 feet in length, accommodating as many as 80 rowers. Boats are usually decorated with dragon heads at the bow and scaly tails at the stern. A sacred ritual is held before the race when the eyes are painted on, which is said to “bring the boat to life.” During the race, a drummer sits in the front of each boat, helping the rowers to work in unison.
Families clean their homes and property in preparation for the festival, hanging bunches of mugwort and calamus on doors to ward off bad luck and disease. Aside from the race itself, there are many time-honored customs associated with the festival: eating sticky rice dumplings wrapped in lotus leaves, called zongzi; drinking wine made with the ruby-colored crystal realgar; and wearing “perfume pouches,” colorful silk bags filled with fragrant medicinal herbs.
端午节快乐!
Early draft by artist Kevin Laughlin
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