📅 When is it Celebrated?
The Dragon Boat Festival :
Date: 5th day of the 5th lunar month (usually in May or June).
In 2025, it falls on May 31.
🐉 Cultural Significance
It's a traditional Chinese festival with over 2,000 years of history.
Honors Qu Yuan (屈原), a patriotic poet from the Warring States period who drowned himself in the Miluo River after his country was conquered.
🚣♂️ Dragon Boat Racing
The festival’s most famous activity.
Long, narrow boats decorated like dragons are paddled in competitive races.
The beating of drums sets the rhythm for rowers.
🍃 Traditional Foods
Zongzi (粽子): Sticky rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves, filled with sweet or savory ingredients (like red bean paste, pork, or salted egg yolk).
🧿 Other Traditions
Hanging mugwort and calamus on doors to ward off evil.
Wearing five-color threads for protection.
Drinking realgar wine (雄黄酒) – once believed to protect against disease and evil spirits.
🌍 Where is it Celebrated?
Primarily in China, but also observed in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and other parts of Asia (like Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam).
In Vietnam, it is known as Tết Đoan Ngọ.
🏛️ Public Holiday
It is a national public holiday in China, and has been listed as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO since 2009.
