Dragon Boat Festival: One of Asia’s Oldest Holidays

Once upon a time, thousands of years ago, during one of China’s many internal feuds, there lived a king and a poet. They loved each other very much, but many people were jealous of the king’s affections and spread rumors that the poet was working for the king’s enemy. Of course, the poet lost the king’s favor and was banished.

As in any good tragedy, he wrote sad rhymes for the rest of his days until hearing that his king had been defeated, at which point he promptly drowned himself in a river. People dragged the river with their boats looking for the poet’s body and threw rice balls into the water hoping to distract the fish from eating his remains. According to the story, the body was never found, but the tradition of racing dragon boats and eating zongzi began.

Originating over two thousand years ago during the Warring States period, Dragon Boat festival is one of China’s oldest holidays and was one of the first events to be added to the UNESCO Intangible Heritage list. Today, it’s become an international sporting event and teams from all over the world come to try their luck in Taipei, which hosts the largest Dragon Boat Race in Asia. During the event, boats line up and race to grab their team’s flag.



Of course, each boat is brightly painted as a dragon and there’s even a special eye painting ceremony the night before a race to bring a boat’s dragon to life. Each boat is loaded with a crew consisting of a flag grabber, drummer and rowers. The drummer acts as the dragon’s heartbeat while the flag grabber has the fun job of pretending to be the dragon’s mouth, stretching out over the dragon’s head to grab the flag.

Dragon Boat Festival is officially recognized as the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese Lunar year, which means that the holiday can occur anytime during the month of June or even at the end of May. There are dozens of locations to watch the races in Taiwan including Keelung, Kaohsiung and New Taipei City, but the international championships are held at the Riverside Park in Taipei.

In addition to watching the races, other favorite dragon boat traditions include eating zongzi (sticky rice wrapped in bamboo representing the rice balls that were thrown into the water over 2,000 years ago), balancing eggs at noon and wearing scented sachets that in days past would have been useful for keeping bugs away and preventing the spread of disease.