Today's Dragon Boat Festival丨Is the Dragon Boat Festival really to commemorate Qu Yuan? The answer starts from here

This article was reviewed by Shao Lin, a popular science writer of ancient folk literature

The annual Dragon Boat Festival is here as scheduled. I believe many foodies should have already tasted the must-have food of this festival - rice dumplings - in advance.

What I mean is, don’t just think about eating, do you know how the Dragon Boat Festival came about?

Many people would probably answer that it is to commemorate Qu Yuan. In fact, this statement is inaccurate.

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Today, let’s talk about the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival!

It turns out that the Dragon Boat Festival existed long before Qu Yuan was born, and even Qu Yuan celebrated the Dragon Boat Festival during his lifetime.

The Dragon Boat Festival is not just for commemorating someone, but an ancient Chinese traditional festival. It originated from the worship of natural celestial phenomena and mythological beliefs. Because May 5th is midsummer, the blue dragon and the seven stars rise to the middle of the sky in the south, which is the most "central" position of the year. When people see such a good celestial phenomenon, how can they not offer sacrifices? Of course, in the pre-Qin era, the fifth month of the lunar calendar was called the evil month, and the fifth day was called the "poisonous day". The fifth day of May was also the day to ward off poison and drive away evil spirits.

Later, due to regional differences, different regions had different customs, such as eating (sweet and salty) rice dumplings, dragon boat racing, hanging moxa leaves, drinking realgar wine, etc.

Say

Do you eat sweet rice dumplings?

Or salty rice dumplings?

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