What is the background of the Dragon Boat Festival and were the best places for folks to watch Dragon Boat races in Beijing?
The Dragon Boat (端午) Festival holiday has come and gone. It was cool, a chance to watch boat races in-between watch 2018 World Cup Soccer Matches. The Dragon Boat Festival however is an annual holiday China where people race boats “shaped like dragons” on China’s lakes and rivers. The celebration can be traced back to Qu Yuan a poet who lived during Pre-unified China-the Warring States period.
After Qu Yuan opposing an alliance with the expansionist state of Qin, Qu Yuan was accused of treason and sentenced to exile.
He spent three decades wandering the southern regions, but when Qu Yuan learned Qin had captured his country’s capital (called Ying), Qu Yuan penned his famous poem ‘Lament for Ying’ before drowning himself in the Miluo River.
Hearing of his death, locals raced out to the river in their boats and tossed sticky rice balls into the water to keep the fish from eating his remains. This, according to legend, was the origin of both the races and the festival’s traditional snack of zongzi, glutinous rice stuffed with fillings and wrapped in bamboo leaves
They might not be real fire-breathing dragons, but it doesn’t make races any less awesome and intense. Over 30 teams from across China will duke it out at the National Dragon Boat Invitational Race at Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park.
Golden Sail Water Sports Club (Houhai), home of the Beijing International Dragon boat Racing Team, will also host five days of races between Xicheng district government bureaus.