2024 Chinese Dragon Boat Festival
Chinese New Year, the Mid-Fall Moon Festival
and the Dragon Boat Day are three major festivals in China. The Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month of the Chinese lunar calendar. Chinese call this day as Duan-Wu
. Duan means beginning. Wu means Horse month in Chinese calendar. The
Horse month usually begins on June 5th or June 6th in the Gregorian calendar. That means Dragon Boat Festival should be held in June, unless that year has Leap Month in the Chinese lunar calendar.
The Date of Chinese Dragon Boat Festival
The Date of Chinese Dragon Boat Festival is the 5th lunar day of the 5th Chinese lunar month.
| Year | China Time Zone | USA Pacific Time Zone | USA Eastern Time Zone |
| 2022 | 6/03/2022 | 6/03/2022 | 6/03/2022 |
| 2023 | 6/22/2023 | 6/21/2023 | 6/21/2023 |
| 2024 | 6/10/2024 | 6/10/2024 | 6/10/2024 |
| 2025 | 5/31/2025 | 5/30/2025 | 5/30/2025 |
The Sad Story of Dragon Boat
(340
BC-278 BC or 343-290 B.C.), who committed suicide by jumping into the river after
tying himself with big rock on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month.
Chiu Yuan was the number one advisor of the kingdom of Chu
. But people
were jealous his position and said lots of bad words on his back. The
king wouldn't take his advice in the end and was killed by the enemy of neighbor kingdom.
The new king continued to enjoy the luxury life and didn't like Chiu Yuan
either. Later, Chiu Yuan was exiled. He wrote many patriotic poem after then.
Chiu Yuan met a fisherman, who never cared about the country and quite satisfied his life. Chiu Yuan thought that the king wouldn't run the country, people only cared about themselves, nobody cared the future of the country and to live is meaningless. So he killed himself by drowning himself in the river. Many fishermen tried to rescue him, but the body is never found. Fishermen worried about fish would eat his body. So they threw food into the river to feed the fish. Plus, they tried to scare fish away by splashing the water with their paddles and beating the drums on the long narrow boats.
Then the dragon was added into the story. Fishermen believed there was a water-dragon under the river. One man poured down a big jar of strong yellow wine (made of rice). Later, a drunken dragon-like fish floated on the river. One piece of Chiu Yuan's clothing was found in-between the whisker of the water-dragon.
The Dragon Boat Race
The custom of Dragon Boat Race might begin from the southern China. They selected the 5rh lunar day of the 5th lunar month as the totem ceremony. The dragon was the main symbol on the totem, because Chinese thought they were son of dragon. They also made dragon-like canoe. Later, Chinese connected this custom with Duan-Wu festival. Since this was the event only in the southern China. This might be why Dragon Boat Race doesn't that popular in entire China today. But we can see yearly Dragon Boat Race events in Honk Hong and Taiwan. The picture shows a person lies on the top of dragon head of the boat to prepare to catch the flag of target to win the race.
Now, the Dragon Boat Race becomes an international event. This sport is popular in USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, Taiwan, Honk Hong, Singapore etc. Some organization's events aren't held around the Dragon Boat Festival. Some are in July, August or September. You need to check their websites for the schedules.
- www.sfdragonboat.com (California)
- www.dragonboat.net (Hong Kong)
- dcdragonboatfestival.com (Washington, DC)
The Delicious Food
Obviously, the Zong-zi, which Chinese eat on the the Dragon Boat Day period, is like the food for Chiu Yuan. Zong-zi is make of steamed glutinous sweet rice mixing with meat and condiment wrapped in the bamboo leaves. There are salty, sweet, hot or cold different variety of Zong-Zi today. You can find Zong-Zi in Chinese restaurants providing Dim-Sum lunch or same Chinese diners in Chinese communities in USA.
The Standup Egg
Parents like to let their children to try to make the egg standing up on the Dragon Boat Day. Certainly, the standing up egg competition will be held at noon in many places. They said that it's will be easier to make a standing up egg at noon. Many try to cheat on the ground, eggshell or inside egg to in order to win the competition.
People had looked for the scientific explanation. The egg can standup easily is because the Dragon Boat Day is close to the summer solstice, which is the longest day of the year. The summer solstice occurs when the Earth's axis tilts the most toward the sun, causing the sun to be farthest north at noon. Sun reaches to the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere on the day of summer solstice. Before sun travels back to the southern hemisphere, it seems as if the sun stands still. When the gravitation between sun and earth are pulled each other to the most, an egg can stand up easier.
Actually, the Dragon Boat Day is not close to the summer solstice every year. Because the lunar leap months, the Dragon Boat Day usually is close to summer solstice every three years.
| Year | Summer Solstice | Dragon Boat Day |
| Dragon Boat 2022 | 6/21/2022 | 6/3/2022 |
| Dragon Boat 2023 | 6/21/2022 | 6/22/2023 |
| Dragon Boat 2024 | 6/21/2024 | 6/10/2024 |
| Dragon Boat 2025 | 6/21/2025 | 5/31/2025 |
| Dragon Boat 2026 | 6/21/2026 | 6/19/2026 |
The Auspicious Leaves
The leaves of Acorus are linear, sword-like, glossy, evergreen and lush. Artemisia belongs to daisy family with fern-like leaves.
In Tan Dynasty (618-907 A.D.), Rebel Huang scouted the target village and prepared the next attack in 5th lunar month. He saw a woman carrying a boy in her one arm and holding the another boy's hand was running. Rebel Huang asked her why running. She said, "We heard Bandit Huang is coming, we need to run for our lives." Huang asked again, "Why carrying one in the arm, but holding another with hand?". The woman said, "The one in the arm is the only son of my husband's elder brother. The other one is my son. In case, I cannot run quickly enough, I will drop my son and save my husband brother son." Rebel Huang was very touching, then told her that "Go home quickly and put Acorus and Artemisia on your door, then rebel forces won't hurt your family." She returned to the village and told some people. On the 5th day of 5th lunar month, Rebel Huang's forces entered the village, all the families with Acorus and Artemisia on the door were safe. The custom keeps since then.
The Incense Bag
The incense bag are made by hand. Chinese put the powder of Acorus and Artemisia with some other fragrance stuff into different kind of sewing bags. Therefore the incense bag can prevent an epidemic as the leaves of Acorus and Artemisia. The popular incense bags was 12 horoscope animals. Today, we can find many different auspicious symbols, many other animals, fish, flower, bird, even the cartoon characters. Long time ago, Chinese women liked to make incense bag for children.
The Inauspicious Day
The 5th lunar month is a bad month. The 5th day of the month is an inauspicious day, because many famous people died on this day in Chinese history. One customary book recorded, "if a baby's born on this day, baby boy brings bad luck to dad and baby girl brings bad luck to mom." It happened that parent killed the baby born on this day before.
One famous tragedy story about the 5th day of 5th lunar month happened in Han Dynasty. A 14-yar old girl Tsao Er's father were drowned in the river. The girl cried along the river and looked for her father for 17 days. On the first day of 5th lunar month, the girl jumped into the river. On the 5th day of 5th lunar month, people found the girl's body and her father's body holding together and floating on the river. People were very touching and prayed for them.
The Wine and Water
They said that you will become healthier to drink the spring water from the well on the Dragon Boat Day during Horse hour (11.00 AM to 13.00 PM). The story is from late Ming dynasty. A general brought his troop to the hill and couldn't find the water for days. He prayed to the heaven, then struck his sword into the ground and the water spurted out on the 5th day of 5th lunar month at noon.
Once Chinese drank Strong Yellow Wine to clean up the gem in the body on the Dragon Boat Day. The Strong Yellow Wine is made of rice. It's a tonic wine and not good for children. Therefore adult just wipe the children forehead with the Strong Yellow Wine. They believe that will make children healthier and won't catch the 5th lunar month disease.
Find the Date of Chinese Festivals
Chinese Lunar Calendar Conversion