What is the relationship between Qu Yuan’s death and the Dragon Boat Festival?
Unwilling to see his country encountering the misery, Qu Yuan took his own life by means of jumping into the Miluo River. It is said that the local people put Zong’zi (a kind of glutinous rice dumpling) into the river to feed fish to prevent those fish from eating the body of Qu Yuan, which has been developed into a folk custom gradually. Later, in memory of this great patriotic poet, people made it a custom that on the day of his death, the fifth day of every fifth lunar month, a dragon boat race would be held and people should eat Zongzi, which is the glutinous rice ball wrapped up with bamboo or reed leaves. The tradition is still kept up to now, called the Dragon Boat Festival.
