The Dragon Boat Festival is one of the traditional Chinese festivals. It has a history of two thousand years now. It is said that it is in memory of the patriotic poet Qu Yuan. Why do Chinese people celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival?
Although the customs of celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival are different across China, they all pray for health and disease prevention. On May 5th every year, every household hangs a statue of Zhongkui, hangs moxa leaves and calamus, races dragon boats, eats rice dumplings, drinks realgar wine, and travels to all kinds of diseases. This custom has evolved over more than 2,000 years. The reason why people choose the fifth day of May as the Dragon Boat Festival is because Qu Yuan committed suicide by jumping into the Miluo River with a big stone on May 5, 278 BC. The custom of dragon boat racing also evolved from the way people rowed small boats to rescue Qu Yuan. Because Qu Yuan's body was not found, they scattered the rice in the bamboo tube into the water. They thought that when the fish were full, they would not eat Qu Yuan's body. Later, this activity turned into bamboo tubes containing rice, and now it has evolved into rice dumplings. This kind of activity to commemorate Qu Yuan gradually became a custom; this custom gradually spread throughout the country.
In the process of spreading, the content of the event has also continued to increase. Therefore, the customs of the north and the south are also different.