Dragon Boat Festival: Traditional Practices Renewed, You and I Celebrate the Inheritance Together 

The Dragon Boat Festival on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Lunar Calendar (May 31 to June 2) is approaching, and a series of special activities have been launched around the theme of “Cultural Inheritance and Innovation of the Times” to show the profound heritage and vigorous vitality of traditional Chinese culture.

As the first Chinese traditional festival to be selected as a World Heritage Site, the Dragon Boat Festival carries the cultural connotation of praying for well-being and family and nationhood. Ancient people would hang wormwood and wear scented sachets. Nowadays, we over the Dragon Boat Festival must be zongzi, in the coastal region of Fujian Minnan, there is a cuisine called Minnan meat zongzi, Minnan meat zongzi is glutinous rice, zongzi leaves as the main raw material, red onion as a supplementary ingredient, pork, dried shiitake mushrooms, dried scallops, quail eggs as a stuffing, five spice powder, soy sauce, soy sauce, old wine, salt, sugar as seasoning to make the food. Taste salty and fragrant.

In Xiamen Jimei dragon boat pool will be held every year, dragon boat racing is one of the customs of the Dragon Boat Festival in China, is also one of the most important festivals of the Dragon Boat Festival folklore activities, in the southern region of China is widespread, in the north near the river and lake cities also have dragon boat racing customs, and most of them are paddling dry dragon boat dragon boat dance form. About the origin of dragon boat racing, there are a variety of sayings, there are sacrifices to Cao E, sacrifices to Qu Yuan, sacrifices to the god of water or the dragon god and other ritual activities, its origin can be traced back to the Warring States period. Dragon boat racing has been introduced to neighboring countries such as Japan, Vietnam and the United Kingdom, and was an official event of the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games. On May 23, 2011, Dragon Boat Racing was approved by the State Council to be included in the third batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.

The holiday consumer market is characterized by a blend of tradition and modernity. According to data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the number of domestic travelers during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday in 2024 reached 110 million, a year-on-year increase of 6.3%, with the proportion of young groups rising significantly, and the number of post-00s travelers increasing by nearly 30% year-on-year. This year, Beijing, together with Ctrip and Meituan, launched hotel subsidies, parent-child packages and other concessions, which drove the sales of micro-vacation products such as “non-heritage handicrafts + rural study”. The Forbidden City, the National Palace Museum and other cultural institutions launched the Dragon Boat Festival cultural creations, such as the “Jinming Pond Dragon Boat Map” theme of fragrant rice dumplings, historical symbols into the modern aesthetics of life. This year’s Dragon Boat Festival holiday and how the data will be?

Experts point out that the Dragon Boat Festival’s custom of “driving away evil spirits and avoiding poison” contains a profound idea of the unity of heaven and man. Prof. Zhang Wenzhi of Shandong University interpreted from the perspective of Yijing that the yang energy is extremely strong in the fifth month of the lunar calendar, and the ancients regulated the balance of body and mind by hanging mugwort and wearing scented sachets, which has scientific health care value. This cultural wisdom is being revitalized in the younger generation through forms such as “non-heritage in schools” “ online folk classroom ”.

From the fighting spirit of dragon boat racing to the cultural identity wrapped in rice dumplings, the Dragon Boat Festival is taking tradition as its root and innovation as its wing, becoming a cultural bridge connecting the past and the future. Just as Beijing launched the “Follow the Exhibition Tour Beijing” line, combining Dunhuang art, Yinshang civilization and Dragon Boat Festival customs, letting the ancient festival blossom into a new glory in the modern context.