Dragon Boat Festival

In the middle of the year, there is a festival known as the Dragon Boat Festival, perhaps this is one of the best known festivals in the west.

Held in Hong Kong every year, they have boats for foreign devils (our name for Westerners), and the Chinese. It is always good humored and friendly.

The original story is about a poet and scholar in 277 BC whose advice was ignored by the Emperor and as a result the country was in decline.

He felt that was the only honorable thing left for him to do was to end his life, so he drowned himself on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month.

The peasants tried to rescue him in vain, and in order to preserve his body, they wrapped rice in lotus leaves and threw them in the river; hoping the sea creatures would eat the food and leave the body alone, they also decided to beat drums to frighten them away.

This tradition has lasted to the present day. Every year in May, when we have boat racing, we eat sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaves.

As described above, this is only a traditional practice and the activity of the race has traveled all over the world where Chinese communities are.

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