Duan Wu Jie, The Dragon Boat Festival
From Association of Independent Readers and Rootworkers
Duan Wu Jie ("Double Fifth" -- the fifth day of the fifth lunisolar month), also known as Lóng Zhou Jie ("Imperial Boat Festival" or The Dragon Boat Festival, is a traditional Taoist festival held every year. Duan Wu takes place on the fifth day of Liúyuè ("Pomegranate Month"), which roughly corresponds with the zodiac sign of Gemini. This holiday commemorates the life and death of Qu Yuan (340-278 BCE), a poet and aristocrat who was a member of the long-running Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BCE).
During the tumultuous Warring States Period (475-221 BCE), toward the close of the dynasty, local kings took control of their own small states, resulting in more than 200 years of chaos and conflict. Qu lived in the state of Chu, A member of the ruling Chu family, he served as a minister under King Huai of Chu. He worked to put an end to corruption in the government, which led to opposition against his reforms. As the raging wars took their toll, King Huai decided to make an alliance with the powerful state of Qin. Qu, a patriot of Chu, opposed this pact, rightly believing that it would lead to the end of Chu as an independent state. For speaking out against the king's plans, he was accused of treason and banished from the court. While in exile, Qu wrote many poems, and quite a few have survived and are revered as classics of ancient Chinese verse. Twenty-eight years after his banishment, Qu's warning came true, as the Chu capital at Ying fell to the Qin. Qu Yuan’s loyalty to his country was so strong that in response, he committed suicide by drowning himself in the Miluo River on the fifth day of the fifth month. Qu Yuan’s last poem was:
Many a heavy sigh I have in my despair,
Grieving that I was born in such an unlucky time.
I yoked a team of jade dragons to a phoenix chariot,
And waited for the wind to come,
To soar up on my journey.
There is a poetic reason that Qu chose this day to die, for it marked the anniversary of the death of an earlier patriot, a man named Wu Zixu (?-484 BCE), whose life and death had followed an eerily similar pattern to that of Qu Yuan. Wu had been a military general and court official in the Wu Kingdom during the earlier Spring and Autumn Period (722-481 BCE) of the Zhou dynasty. A princess from Qin had been promised in marriage to the crown prince of Chu, but upon seeing her, the king of Chu took her for his own, and in the resulting court intrigue, the king was told that the crown prince's tutor, a man named Wu She, would lead a rebellion against him. Wu She was executed, along with his faithful son Wu Shang, but his other son, Wu Zixu, fled to the nearby state of Wu and promised revenge. Once in Wu, he became an advisor of Prince Guang, who soon ascended to the throne as King Helü of Wu. King Helü, Wu Zixu, and Sun Tzu, the author of "The Art of War," engaged in battles against their enemies, and due to their victories, Wu was elevated to the title of Duke of Shen. When King Helü died, the new leader, King Fuchai, did not trust Wu Zixu's warnings against the aggressive intentions of the Yue state. Wu was accused of treason for speaking out and was ordered to commit suicide with a sword on the fifth day of the fifth month. His body was thrown into the Suzhou river. Ten years later, his prediction came true and Fuchai's troops were conquered by the army of Yue. In time Wu Zixu was venerated as a martyr and even identified as a "water god." Many believe that the story of Wu Zixu was on the patriotic Qu Yuan's mind when Qu took his own life in a river on the fifth day of the fifth month.
The association of the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese calendar with patriotism, loyalty, martyrdom, piety, and rivers has led over time to the development of the Dragon Boat Festival, which began as a celebration of the life of Qu Yuan. During the festival, crowds gather to watch the racing of the brightly coloured and elaborately designed boats. A special food served at this time is zong zi ("sticky rice") a steamed glutinous rice dumpling made in the form of a tetrahedron, covered with bamboo leaves and tied with string. The savoury variety may be filled with rice and pork, rice and duck, or rice and egg yolks; the sweet variety may include red bean paste. The link between eating zong zi dumplings and the death of the noble Qu Yuan has the ring of legend and lore: It is said that the people were so saddened at his suicide that they threw sticky rice dumplings into the river to prevent fish from eating his corpse until they could send boats out to bring it to land for proper ceremonial veneration and internment.
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