dumbfoundry

The Double Fifth Day, known through the West as the Dragon Boat Festival day, is another significant lunar holiday for the Chinese around the world, as it serves to commemorate the grim crusade against corruption and ineffectual government. This year, it fell June 22.

On the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, a great patriot poet Qu Yuan (c. 340-278 BC), a formerly high-ranking official at the Kingdom of Chu, drowned himself in the Mi Lou river after he learned about his country's downfall at the hands of another powerful state, the Qin. [...]

With grief, Qu Yuan saw the gradual decline of the Chu state, his mother country. Despair and frustration led him to suicide -- and he leapt into the river.

Upon learning of their beloved poet's death, his followers were terribly dismayed. Fishermen raced to the spot in their long boats, beating drums to scare the fish away and throwing zongzi (rice dumplings) into the water to feed the fish so they would not consume Qu Yuan's body. [...]

This entry was posted by eeksypeeksy on Friday, June 25, 2004 at 9:34 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.