What´s up with the dragon boat festival?

[Maria]

So Carrefour and Auchan decorated their hallways with huge dragons and a student of mine said there´s gonna be this Dragon Boat festival this Thursday, but I keep asking people and searching in Chengdu networks and there´s nothing to be seen about it…so…What´s up with the dragon boat festival?

[Danny]

Its an annual Chinese holiday, along the lines of Memorial Day in the US, although I’m not quite sure what they’re celebrating. Just know that schools and workplaces are usually off that day, and there should be a lot of public gatherings for festivities.

[Callum]

The story goes that the poet and minister, Qu Yuan, committed suicide when the capitol of his kingdom was invaded by jumping into the river. The local people adored him, so they raced into the river on dragon boats to save him or his body. They also threw sticky rice balls into the water to tempt the fish to eat those instead of his body.

Poets feature a lot in Chinese history, I realise.

[Author]

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