Dragon Boat Festival
01 · Historical Records
The Wuchang Dragon Boat Grand Gathering (Longzhou Shenghui) is a large-scale folk activity held every Dragon Boat Festival in Wuchang Subdistrict, Yuhang District, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province; it has been transmitted for more than five hundred years. When the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty toured the Jiangnan region and saw the local spectacle of dragon-boat racing as bustling as a country fair, he happily called it the "Dragon Boat Grand Gathering" (Longzhou Shenghui); the name spread from then on and has been used to the present day.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Dragon Boat Festival on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month is a traditional Chinese festival, also known as "Chongwu" ("double noon"), "Duanwu", and "Pujie" ("calamus festival"). "Duan" means "beginning", so the fifth day [of the month] is called "Duanwu" ("beginning fifth"). In the Xia (lunar) calendar the first month is established as the month of Yin; following the order of the earthly branches, the fifth month is precisely the month of Wu, and the ancients often called the fifth day "Wu day"; hence "Duanwu" is also called "Chongwu" ("double Wu"). Dragon Boat Festival customs are found throughout the country and are mainly prevalent in the broad Han areas; the Zhuang, Buyi, Dong, Tujia, and Gelao, among other ethnic minorities, also have the custom of observing the Dragon Boat Festival. There are many legends about the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival — commemorating Qu Yuan's drowning in the river, the taboo of the fifth day of the fifth month as a poisonous day, King Goujian of Yue training his navy, commemorating Wu Zixu's throwing himself into the Qiantang River, and Cao E's rescue of her father. Refined over successive generations and combined with the folk activities of the festival, these accounts have formed a unique festival custom of the Chinese nation. The main activities of the Dragon Boat Festival include commemorating historical figures, rowing dragon boats, eating zongzi (rice dumplings), pasting up Duanwu paper-cuts, hanging mugwort and calamus, wearing sachets and other evil-averting objects, and bathing with orchid water; in addition there are games such as doucao (plant contests), ball games, and willow shooting. These activities have produced related implements, articles, and foods, among which dragon boats, zongzi, pictures of the five venomous creatures, mugwort and calamus, pictures of Zhong Kui, pictures of Zhang Tianshi, and images of Qu Yuan are the most common. With the progress of society, the Dragon Boat Festival has gradually developed into a traditional festival rich in content and has gained tremendous vitality. For example, the customs of rowing dragon boats and eating zongzi in the Dragon Boat Festival have been well preserved to the present day and have developed healthily. In view of this, scientific guidance should be applied to the other cultural expressions of the Dragon Boat Festival, so that the festival cultural activities of the broad masses become richer and more colorful. Every year at the Dragon Boat Festival, households throughout Wuchang hang a hundred herbs, eat the "five yellows" (five yellow foods), and organize the Dragon Boat Grand Gathering spontaneously. The distinguishing feature of the Wuchang Dragon Boat Grand Gathering is competition in skill and a boisterous dragon-boat festival; the emphasis is on the element of "rowing" (hua), with no deliberate stress on winning by speed. Bare-hulled dragon boats are the most numerous; they carry no decoration, with only a dragon head erected at the bow, fixed in place below with sticky clay. From 12 noon to 3 p.m. on the Dragon Boat Festival, more than a hundred dragon boats of all colors from villages within ten li in every direction gather at the mouth of the Wuchang creek; along a stretch of river four to five hundred meters long, gongs and drums ring out, spray flies on all sides, boats row this way and that, crowding and jostling one another in a bustling, thrill-packed scene. At the same time, the banks are a sea of people and a moving mass of heads; cheers and cries of "bravo" echo back and forth with the rising and falling work songs on the water — a truly spectacular sight. After the dragon-boat rowing on the festival day, with the rowers having "thanked the Dragon King", the old and young of every village gather together to drink Dragon Boat wine and reward the rowers, making for a scene of great liveliness. Under these circumstances, the various folk rituals, the Dragon Boat Grand Gathering included, have grown increasingly simplified and keep losing their original character; protective measures are urgently needed to prevent the ancient festival customs from gradually being lost.
Inviting and serving the dragon king
A month before the race the dragon king is invited from his temple and served daily at the village landing, each village keeping its own offerings and taboos.
How the race is judged
Here the contest is not speed but jostling, blocking and the keeping-together of the rowing song.
Thanks to the dragon and the wine feast
The boats are thanked and the whole village drinks together to reward the rowers, after which the boats are laid up until the next spring.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Wuchang dragon boats can be divided by decoration into several kinds: full-canopy (mantianzhang), half-canopy (bantianzhang), and bare-hulled boats; the full-canopy and half-canopy boats belong to the ornamental type. Before and after the Dragon Boat Grand Gathering, the Wuchang area also has traditional folk activities such as "inviting the Dragon King", "thanking the Dragon King", and "drinking Dragon Boat wine". As the times have advanced, social life in the Wuchang area has changed greatly; villagers are scattered among separate rural settlement points, making it very hard for them to gather together.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Dragon Boat Festival · Dragon Boat Festival · Dragon Boat Festival · Dragon Boat Festival · Dragon Boat Festival · Dragon Boat Festival · Dragon Boat Festival · Dragon Boat Festival · Dragon Boat Festival · Dragon Boat Festival · Dragon Boat Festival · Dragon Boat Festival · Dragon Boat Festival · Dragon Boat Festival · Dragon Boat Festival.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
It has important reference value for research on the history of folk customs and related areas. The Wuchang Dragon Boat Grand Gathering is a distinctive folk festival activity of the Jiangnan water country, with broad popular participation and folk transmission, and it displays strong cultural cohesion.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Tan Guozheng 05-2970
- Liu Guisheng 05-2971
- Xiang Fuchang
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。