Introduction to Eight Traditional Customs of Dragon Boat Festival

Dragon Boat Festival is a folk festival that integrates offering sacrifices to gods and ancestors, praying for evil spirits, celebrating entertainment and eating. The customs mainly include dragon boat race, Dragon Boat Festival, herb picking, hanging wormwood, drinking water at noon, washing herbal water, offering sacrifices to gods and ancestors, soaking in dragon boat water, eating dragon boat rice, eating zongzi, putting paper dragons, putting paper kites, tying colorful silk threads, wearing sachets and so on. Due to the limited space, I will choose eight traditional customs of the Dragon Boat Festival to share in detail.

1, Eating Zongzi Speaking of Dragon Boat Festival, everyone will definitely think of eating Zongzi. Zongzi, as the representative food of the Dragon Boat Festival, is said to be thrown into the river to prevent fish and shrimp from biting Qu Yuan's body. Second, because the edges and corners of zongzi are like a knife, it can eradicate diseases and disasters. After thousands of years of inheritance and development, zongzi are mostly wrapped in bamboo leaves and made of glutinous rice and yellow rice. Different regions have different practices, such as sweet zongzi with different tastes and meat zongzi with different materials. Eating zongzi on the Dragon Boat Festival not only carries the feelings of home and country, but also contains the deep feelings of family and friends getting together. Zongzi is known as one of the traditional foods with the deepest historical and cultural accumulation in China.

2. Dragon boat race is one of the customs of China Dragon Boat Festival, and it is also one of the most important festivals and folk activities. It widely exists in the south of China, and there are also dragon boat races in cities near rivers, lakes and seas in the north, and most of them are held in the form of dragon boat rowing and dragon boat dancing.

There are many sayings about the origin of dragon boat racing, such as offering sacrifices to Cao E, Qu Yuan, water god or dragon god, which can be traced back to the Warring States period. Dragon boat race was first introduced to Japan, Vietnam, Britain and other neighboring countries, and it was the official event of Guangzhou Asian Games in 20 10. The origin of the Dragon Boat Festival is to commemorate Qu Yuan. Rowing a dragon boat to disperse the fish in the river so as not to eat Qu Yuan's body.

3. There is a proverb in the countryside where wormwood is hung, which is called "inserting willow in Qingming Festival and wormwood in Dragon Boat Festival". Therefore, one thing that every household must do on the Dragon Boat Festival every year is to insert wormwood leaves and calamus, so the Dragon Boat Festival is also called "Acorus Festival" and "Ai Festival". Cleaning the courtyard, inserting mugwort leaves and calamus on the lintel, or hanging them indoors can prevent mosquitoes and ward off evil spirits. It is also made of wormwood, calamus, garlic, Liu Hua, dragon boat flower, etc. And can be worn on the body to drive away miasma. After drying, wormwood can be soaked in water for fumigation and disinfection to relieve itching, which has too many benefits.

Eating salted duck eggs salted duck eggs is one of the most popular foods in Dragon Boat Festival. The Dragon Boat Festival gift boxes in major supermarkets are also a classic combination of zongzi and salted duck eggs. The production of salted eggs is very common and is produced all over the country. Among them, Jiangsu Gaoyou salted egg is the most famous, which has six characteristics: fresh, fine, tender, loose, sandy and oily. As the saying goes, "to send cold, you must eat salted egg zongzi first." Because the Dragon Boat Festival heralds the arrival of hot summer, popular Dragon Boat Festival customs such as "Huang Wu" and "Twelve Red" have played a role in exorcising evil spirits and eliminating summer, and salted duck eggs have been certified as delicious by various places.

5, with sachets Dragon Boat Festival children wear sachets, which is said to have the meaning of avoiding evil spirits and expelling plague. The sachet is usually filled with some fragrant Chinese herbal medicines, which have the functions of fragrance, insect repellent, plague prevention and disease prevention. Actually, it is used for interior decoration. The sachet contains cinnabar, realgar and fragrant medicine, wrapped in silk cloth, and the fragrance is overflowing, and then tied into a rope with five-color silk thread to make a string of different shapes, all kinds of exquisite and lovely. When I was a child, my mother would wear sachets for me on the Dragon Boat Festival. At that time, I cherished it and put it under my pillow when I slept every day.

6. Drinking realgar wine realgar wine is a drink of the traditional Chinese festival Dragon Boat Festival. It used to be very popular in the Yangtze River valley. Realgar can be used as an antidote and insecticide, so ancient people thought that realgar could inhibit snakes, scorpions and other insects. However, because the main component of realgar is arsenic disulfide, which can be decomposed into highly toxic arsenic when heated, oral administration is not recommended; Generally, it is only made by adding a small amount of realgar to white wine or homemade yellow wine, and there is no pure drink. For children under drinking age, adults apply realgar wine to forehead, ears, ears, hands, feet, heart and other parts to disinfect and prevent diseases.

7. Avoid five poisons refers to centipedes, poisonous snakes, scorpions, geckos and toads. These five poisonous animals are collectively called five poisons. Due to the vast territory, numerous nationalities and the influence of many stories and legends, the customs of celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival vary from place to place. In ancient northern China, some local folk customs believed that the five poisons began to be born at noon in May every summer, so there was a custom of avoiding the world. Generally, a map of five poisons is posted in the house, five poisons are printed on red paper, and then five needles are stuck on the five poisons, that is, the poisons are stabbed to death, and they can no longer be rampant. Folk people also embroider five poisons on clothes and decorate five poisons on cakes, all of which mean expulsion.

8. Another important custom of the Dragon Boat Festival is to wear the long life line, also known as the life line, life line, life line and life line. Longevity thread is usually twisted into five-color colored rope or made into small ornaments of various shapes. It is said that Dragon Boat Festival can be hung on children's wrists, ankles or necks, which can avoid disasters, keep healthy and prolong life.

These are eight traditional customs I know about the Dragon Boat Festival. What else do you know?