Dragon Boat Festival - Tainan Taiwan 端午節 端午节 Duanwu

The Dragon Boat Festival is a national holiday in Taiwan. The event lasts several days culminating in the finals, this is the day that is the national holiday. There is a steady diet of fireworks to go along with the great snack foods and outdoor entertainment. The announcer makes jokes with the crowd during the start, if you listen carefully you can hear the teams getting themselves psyched up.

The race is for honor and glory....oh yea, there is prize money too : )

Ever wonder why people race boats on this day? Here is the low down:

Modern researchers suggest that the stories of Qu Yuan or Wu Zixu were superimposed on a pre-existing holiday tradition. The promotion of these stories over the earlier lore of the holiday seems to have been encouraged by Confucian scholars seeking to legitimize and strengthen their influence at a time when Buddhism, a foreign belief system, was gaining influence in China. The Records of the Grand Historian of that era relate to this. Still with me?

The Dragon Boat Festival is believed to have originated in ancient China. A number of theories exist about its origins as a number of folk traditions and explanatory myths are connected to its observance. Today the best known of these relates to the suicide in 278 BCE of Qu Yuan, poet and statesman of the Chu kingdom during the Warring States period. Perhaps he was the first Emo?

In the year 278 BCE, at the age of 37, Qu Yuan drowned himself in the Milo River. He clasped a heavy stone to his chest and leaped into the water. Knowing that Qu Yuan was a righteous man, the people of Chu rushed to the river to try to save him. The people desperately searched the waters in their boats looking for Qu Yuan but were unsuccessful in their attempt to rescue him. Every year the Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated to commemorate this attempt at rescuing Qu Yuan.

When it was known that Qu Yuan had been lost forever, the local people began the tradition of throwing sacrificial cooked rice into the river for their lost hero. However, a local fisherman had a dream that Qu Yuan did not get any of the cooked rice that was thrown into the river in his honour. Instead the fish in the river were eating the rice. Thus, the locals decided to make zongzi to sink into the river in the hopes that it would reach Qu Yuan's body. The following year, the tradition of wrapping the rice in bamboo leaves to make zongzi began.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• 'Dragon
• Boat
• Race'
• 'dragon
• boat
• festival'
• boat'
• tainan
• taiwan
• 端午節
• 端午节
• Duanwu

[DestinationTaiwan]

In Tainan I would guess the crowd is around 50,000. But it lasts all day long, food, music...etc. So I'm sure a lot more pass through but the crowd looked like about 50,000 spread out all along either side of the river. Kahoushung and Taipei have really big festivals!

[TopVideo77]

Lucky you! I've always wanted to see that. How many people usually go to watch the races? Tens of thousands or hundred thousand maybe?