2024 Chinese Dragon Boat Festival Programme

THE STORIES OF

DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL

The Dragon Boat Festival, also known as Duan Wu Festival, falls on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month of the Chinese calendar, which is June 10th this year. It is a day celebrated to commemorate the life and death of one of China’s most famous citizens. Qu Yuan, who lived in the pre-imperial Warring States period (475-221 BC), is a central figure in the festival's history

Qu Yuan is popularly regarded as a minister in one of the Warring State governments, the southern state of Chu (present day Hunan and Hubei provinces), a champion of political loyalty and integrity, and eager to maintain the Chu state’s autonomy and hegemony. Formerly, it was believed that the Chu monarch fell under the influence of other corrupt, jealous ministers who slandered Qu Yuan as ‘a thorn in his side’ and therefore he banished Qu, his most loyal counsellor.

In the year 278 BC, upon hearing of the upcoming devastation of his state from invasion by a neighbouring State (Qin in particular), Qu Yuan is said to have waded into the Miluo River holding a great rock in order to commit ritual suicide as a form of protest against the corruption of the era. The Qin kingdom eventually conquered all of the other states including Chu and unified them into the first Chinese empire. The word China derives from the first dynasty of the empire, Qin, under the imperialist unifier Qin Shi Huang.