Dragon Boat Festival, also known as Duanwu Festival, is a traditional Chinese holiday that falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. The festival has a history of over 2,000 years and is celebrated in many East Asian countries, including China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
The festival is best known for its dragon boat races, in which teams of rowers paddle long narrow boats, decorated to look like dragons, in a race to the finish line. Other customs and traditions associated with the festival include eating zongzi (sticky rice dumplings), hanging calamus and moxa leaves, and drinking realgar wine.
The origins of the Dragon Boat Festival are rooted in Chinese history and legend. The festival is said to have originated from the commemoration of the death of Qu Yuan, a famous Chinese poet and politician who lived during the Warring States Period. Qu Yuan drowned himself in the Miluo River to protest against the corrupt government of his time, and people raced their boats to save him, but they were too late. To commemorate his death, people threw zongzi into the river to feed the fish and prevent them from eating his body, and they also raced their boats in his honor.
Today, the Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated as a cultural and sporting event, and it has become a popular tourist attraction for people around the world.
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