Last year, many China officials, experts, scholars and people rose up to "defend the traditional folk festivals in China" when they learned that South Korea was going to declare "gangneung danoje festival" as a cultural heritage to UNESCO. Today, Korean studies
When some people expressed their willingness to declare the World Heritage with China to UNESCO, others expressed their opposition. Experts and scholars will naturally draw conclusions on these issues. But we can't help asking: When South Korea regards the Dragon Boat Festival as an important traditional national festival, how do we treat it lightly? How do we spend the Dragon Boat Festival today?
Many people may forget that Dragon Boat Festival, Spring Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day and Mid-Autumn Festival were once the four traditional folk festivals in China. Just twenty or thirty years ago, there was a strong custom of celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival in Shanghai. At that time, in the counties around Jiangxi and Hunan, the attention paid to the Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival is now surprising. Five to seven days before and after the festival, almost the whole city has a holiday, and everyone goes back to their hometown for the holiday.
How did the Dragon Boat Festival fade away in the city? This really needs serious reflection and discussion. It can't be simply attributed to "knocking down Kongjiadian" in the May 4th Movement and "breaking the Four Classics" in the Cultural Revolution, because at that time, these festivals still maintained vitality in urban social life; Nor can it simply be attributed to the west wind spreading eastward or "worshipping foreign things and obsessing foreign things". In an international metropolis like Hong Kong, the Dragon Boat Festival is a legal holiday, and traditional festivals are entering the lives of young people. Similarly, it cannot be simply attributed to the acceleration of the pace of modern life and the great changes in lifestyle. You can't take the Dragon Boat Festival too seriously and politicize it just because you commemorate Qu Yuan. For 2,000 years, commemorating Qu Yuan and nationwide fitness and epidemic elimination have gone hand in hand. Nor can it be simply attributed to the hype of merchants, which has heated up the foreign festivals and cooled down the folk festivals in China. If there were no hype, would Christmas and Spring Festival be as lively as they are now? We should think about why businesses hype Christmas and Spring Festival and ignore the Dragon Boat Festival. There is no need to blame young people who only know "ha-han" and "ha-day". If they are mature in the future, they may further "hehe" the beneficial experience of Japan and South Korea in the protection of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Will important traditional folk festivals in China be included in legal holidays? If there is room for development, will it be natural and will there be enthusiasm for traditional folk culture? How to guide and cultivate enthusiasm for traditional folk culture? ……
Experts and scholars may argue about these issues for a long time. Before reaching a conclusion, we might as well act first. Another year in a blink of an eye. Experts and scholars may wish to talk about it first. How should we spend the Dragon Boat Festival today?
Visit Miluo on Dragon Boat Festival.
June 1 1, Dragon Boat Festival, China Yueyang (Miluo River) International Dragon Boat Festival was held in Miluo City, Hunan Province where Qu Yuan was martyred. A few days ago, the author made a special trip to Miluo to interview the upcoming Dragon Boat Festival.
On May 5th, it was sunny, and the guru missed Qu Ping. Miluo City in the north of Hunan Province belongs to Luocheng of Chu State. More than 2,300 years ago, on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, Qu Yuan, a great patriotic poet, jumped into the river in the Huai Sha of Miluo River, and the local people struggled to paddle to save the patriotic poet. Since then, the Dragon Boat Festival has been formed.
Interviewing in Miluo, I feel that the atmosphere of the Dragon Boat Festival here is particularly strong. From top to bottom, everyone is planning the Dragon Boat Festival. From 1 1 to 13, dozens of domestic and foreign dragon boat teams participated in this activity, and groups of merchants came by boat to inspect the investment environment. Many scholars at home and abroad 100 were also invited to participate in Qu Yuan's academic discussion at the Dragon Boat Forum.
Some Dragon Boat Festival customs seen in Miluo have been popularized all over the country, such as hanging mugwort leaves in front of the door, hanging kudzu roots, drinking realgar, walking on stilts, making sachets, smoking cigarettes to ward off evil spirits, wrapping colored silk thread around children's arms, and bathing in Perrin, but the forms in other areas are slightly different. However, some customs only exist in Miluo, such as the "Dragon Boat Festival outing" which is different from Qingming. On the morning of Dragon Boat Festival, people walk on the dewy grass in their shoes, so that their shoes are stained with a little crystal dew, in order to admire Qu Yuan's noble sentiment of drinking morning dew, being honest and clean. Some places in Miluo still retain the custom of "releasing early cows" on the Dragon Boat Festival. Every Dragon Boat Festival, farmers will tie red strips of cloth to the right corner of cattle and wormwood leaves to the left corner before sunrise, and then put them in the wild to eat grass and bring them back to the cowshed early in the morning.
When I came to the Dragon Boat Racecourse near Miluo River, I saw that the stands on both sides of the main stadium were newly built and could accommodate tens of thousands of people. Posters are conspicuously erected on both sides of the stadium, one of which records the poem "The Miluo River is the upper reaches of blue ink" written by Taiwan Province poet Yu Guangzhong. Groups of people came to watch the pre-competition preparations, and the participating dragon boat teams were training.
There are some special customs in Miluo Dragon Boat Festival. If the wood used to build the dragon boat must be "stolen", otherwise it will not win; The craftsmen who make dragon boats must be nine people, taking the legend that "one dragon gives birth to nine children". The zongzi sacrificed to Qu Yuan during the Dragon Boat Festival is not brought casually, but shipped from Zigui County, Hubei Province, where Qu Yuan was born, and is called "sending zongzi thousands of miles away".
The author learned from the Dragon Boat Race that Yueyang City and Miluo Municipal Government have also arranged a series of folk-custom projects to show Miluo's unique Dragon Boat Festival, among which the Dragon Boat Festival in Quzi Temple is a typical representative. On the Dragon Boat Festival, people go to Quzi Temple, worship Qu Yuan in the sound of Zhong Qing and drum music, sing "Li Sao" and prepare three sacrificial faucets. The dragon boat team selects a representative, takes down the dragon boat dragon head, carries it to Quzi Temple for sacrifice, and then takes it back to hold a competition.
Dragon boat gongs and drums have sounded, and the dragon forest, the leading dragon in high spirits, is shining on the river. The sculls, braving the wind and waves, have interpreted the legend of Dragon Boat Festival from generation to generation. ...
Zigui Dragon Boat Festival is the strongest.
In Zigui County, Yichang City, Hubei Province, the birthplace of Qu Yuan, one of the four famous cultural figures in the world, people remember Qu Yuan in a better way than other places. It is a very rare life memory to have the opportunity to have an authentic Dragon Boat Festival in Zigui, and to place infinite affection for Qu Yuan with people in Qu Yuan's hometown.
For Quxiang people, a Dragon Boat Festival is far from enough to express people's feelings. There are three Dragon Boat Festival in May of the Zigui lunar calendar: the fifth day is the first Dragon Boat Festival, the fifteenth day is the Grand Dragon Boat Festival, and the 25th day is the last Dragon Boat Festival. The whole May of the lunar calendar has become the Dragon Boat Festival.
After the Dragon Boat Festival in Zigui, I experienced not only the joy of the festival, but also a strong traditional cultural atmosphere. At the end of April in the lunar calendar, you can feel the approach of the Dragon Boat Festival in Quxiang. The men are busy overhauling the dragon boat, daubing tung oil again and soaking in the water. After work, farmers team up to row dragon boats in the river for training, looking forward to the arrival of the competition. Women began to soak glutinous rice and pick Polygonum leaves, absinthe and calamus. The Dragon Boat Festival has begun. Every household took off the absinthe hung on the gate last year and replaced it with new absinthe tied with red paper. People began to make zongzi, boil eggs, eat garlic and drink realgar wine. This lively festive atmosphere will last until the end of the Dragon Boat Festival.
During the Dragon Boat Festival, Quxiang people commemorate Qu Yuan in different ways, but the most important thing is to race the dragon boat, pack jiaozi and hold a poetry meeting.
The Dragon Boat Festival is here, and the smell of zongzi is in the small village of Lepingli, Qu Yuan's hometown. In the yard, under the eaves, village women in twos and threes sit together to make zongzi, saying that parents are short. The children playing under the big tree, while eating zongzi, sang the song "Zongzi Song" which has been circulating for many years: "angular, sweet-hearted, all white, boiled for half a lifetime." When you spend the Dragon Boat Festival in Quxiang, you must savor the taste of Zongzi. Walking in the quiet street of Xiajiang Town, I found an old woman's zongzi shop and sat down. I bought four big zongzi for one yuan, gently untied the thin thread, and then slowly peeled off the leaves of the zongzi, and a fragrance came to my nose. I heard that it was a guest from other places, and the old woman would enthusiastically tell you the story of throwing zongzi into the river to sacrifice Qu Yuan. Speaking of wrapping zongzi, the old woman said that zongzi should be wrapped with good glutinous rice and broad Polygonum leaves, and then wrapped with thin five-color silk thread. The most special thing is to put a red date in the middle of glutinous rice. The angular shape symbolizes Qu Yuan's upright and outspoken character. Snow-white glutinous rice symbolizes Qu Yuan's decontamination quality. That red date is Qu Yuan's ardent and sincere love for the country of Chu.
Dragon boat race is the highlight of Zigui, and it is also a mass sports activity with strong participation and appreciation. In Qu Yuan's hometown, the villagers attach great importance to the dragon boat race, which is known as "it is better to waste a year of land than a year of boats". On the fifth day of May, before the competition started, villagers on both sides of Xiling Gorge dressed in festive costumes rushed to Jiangnan Ferry in Quyuan Town from all directions. With the sound of gongs and drums, the song of evocation was sung, and with the sound of my brother's return, the banks of Xiajiang River were crowded for a while. Dragon boat rowing is divided into four procedures: swimming in the river, evoking the soul, racing and returning to the boat, among which the most enthusiastic is racing and the most touching is evoking the soul. The most impressive song is "Soul Evocation Song": "San Lv, doctor, listen to me/your soul ... return home safely/the people in my hometown respect you/stay with you forever!" The sound shook the Xiajiang River, stopped the clouds and stopped the water, and the tears wet the skirt. The people on the boat shouted "Go home, go home" and threw the zongzi in the bamboo basket into the river. In the subsequent race, with shouts, the dragon boat shuttled through the waves like a hose.
When you come to the poet's hometown during the festival, you must attend the poetry meeting. Twenty-two poems, including Qu Yuan's Lisao, are the greatest wealth of Quxiang people, and holding poems will become a unique form for Quxiang people to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival. Leping is popular in reading. Since ancient times, there has been an active peasant poetry society called SAO altar. On the Dragon Boat Festival, when Ai Zongxiang was fragrant, peasant poets gathered in Quyuan Temple to hold the annual Sao Tan Poetry Meeting. Poets come up with their own poems to mourn Qu Yuan, sing peace with each other and express their feelings. Their devotion and enjoyment made the onlookers forget to go home. In the middle of the night, there is a small light in Leping, which is the torch for farmers and poets to go home.
Lepingli has always been a good place for literati to live in seclusion and visit the ancient times. Qu Yuan grew up and studied here, leaving many relics and touching legends. During the Dragon Boat Festival this year, the "Eight Scenes to Seek Dreams" activity was held here. Visitors can also enjoy actors' performances in scenic spots such as Zhaomian Well, Reading Cave, Curtain Beads and Phoenix Creek. There is a scene in which a young Qu Zi recites Ode to an Orange with a bamboo slip in his hand in the reading cave, and there is also a scene in which an old Qu Yuan recites a song "The Call of Quyao Valley" while walking. The dreamy scene unfolds in front of tourists. You can see the magical "spirit cow" ploughing in the field next to Phoenix Creek. The ox doesn't need to be pulled by the nose rope, just listen to the owner's words and turn on its own, and the land will be leveled. Not everyone is so lucky to take part in the Zongzi Competition in Dr. San Lv's hometown. Making zongzi in the common people's yard, tasting zongzi lunch and experiencing the custom of Dragon Boat Festival in Qu Yuan's hometown have made many tourists from afar unforgettable for life. There are too many activities in the Dragon Boat Festival. Hope Primary School in Lepingli also holds a song and dance performance, and Qu Yuan is a proud fellow villager. In this special festival, the children's performances are particularly fascinating.
Gangneung danoje festival.
Dragon Boat Festival, together with Spring Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, is one of the three major folk festivals in Korea. Dragon Boat Festival used to be a legal holiday in Korea, but it was later cancelled because there were too many public holidays. In rural Korea, the atmosphere of the Dragon Boat Festival is still very strong, and farmers take a day off. Especially in the eastern region with Jiangling as the center, the content of festivals is very rich. Especially after Gangneung Yoko Festival and Masked Dance Drama 1967 were recognized as "Important Intangible Cultural Heritage" by the Korean Ministry of Culture, the scale became larger and larger, and the content became richer and richer.
Gangneung danoje festival originated from the worship of mountain gods and has a history of 1000 years. At present, a set of activity system with Korean folk characteristics has been formed, which is divided into three parts: sacrifice, performance and entertainment, and the activity time span is 20 days. There are as many as 25 kinds of Dragon Boat Festival ceremonies, which are divided into "brewing wine", "offering sacrifices to mountain gods", "cutting sacred trees", "offering sacrifices to gods", "witchcraft in Dragon Boat Festival" and "offering sacrifices to gods" according to procedures, and are presided over by special ceremony officials. Witchcraft is performed in the form of singing and dancing to entertain the gods and people. They are all guided by wizards and participated by the whole people. * * * I wish the village peace and a bumper harvest in agriculture and fisheries. The most distinctive feature of folk performing arts is the official slave costume tour, which is humorous. In addition, there are many recreational activities such as farm music, chorus, pot wrestling, swinging, kneeling competition, taekwondo competition, chess king competition and so on. At the same time, a large-scale "chaos" similar to the China Temple Fair was held, which brought together local specialty exhibitions and folk performances and attracted a large number of people to visit and spend money.
The biggest difference between Gangneung Dragon Boat Festival and China is that you don't eat zongzi or row dragon boats. On this day, Korean men will take part in wrestling, and women will swing, wash their hair and take a bath with wormwood boiling water. Villagers will also brew turbid wine, which is rice wine; Stir-fried wheel cakes with millet and corn flour, coriander and onion, similar to onion pancakes in China; The burdock cake made of mountain burdock is wrapped with fried bean powder, which is soft and delicious, just like "snowballing" in northern China. Among the customs of the Dragon Boat Festival, there are also cutting calamus sticks and painting dragon boat fans.
Today, gangneung danoje festival attracts millions of domestic and foreign tourists every year.
Xingwen Shihai World held a cave dragon boat race.
Xingwen Shihai World Geopark held a unique underground cave dragon boat race in Tian Quan Cave from June 9th to 12 Miaoshan Flower Festival. Strange competition venues, ancient competition rules, melodious Miao folk songs, grand "? The "bonfire carnival for ancestor worship" attracted many tourists.
On June 1 1 day, Shunde District, Foshan City, Guangdong Province, the "Harmony Cup" Dragon Boat Race Winning Golden Zongzi Invitational Tournament was held in Luchang Farm, and 100 radial players of the Dragon Boat Team will face new challenges.
It is reported that after the start of the competition, the radial players have to go through three levels of "joint efforts to clamp zongzi", and two players use paddles to clamp the zongzi in the right wooden basin to the boat; To "rescue a companion", a team member must untie the rope of the tied team member; "Rope obstacle, storm", the team members should pull up the rope in front of the dragon boat, pass through the water spray column and wooden stake, and then enter the competition area. In the competition area, the biggest challenge obstacle is "grasping the hexagonal frame of zongzi at the height of 10". The dragon boat must stop at the designated area 10 meters away, and then swim to the hexagonal frame. Together, the three people sent the team that won the zongzi to the first floor, which was 3.5 meters high. The team that won the zongzi climbed to the third floor and took down the golden zongzi hanging in a basket 3 meters away from the tripod. After getting the golden zongzi, you can jump directly into the water, meet your teammates and row the dragon boat to the archway. Then one climbs the 6-meter-high archway, hangs the zongzi on the crossbar, slides down from the crossbar, and rings the gong to indicate the end of the game. (Huang Feng Jieping)
Go to the Han River to splash water on the Dragon Boat Festival.
Shishi News Dragon Boat Festival, Quanzhou, Fujian, there will be "boat racing and water splashing" again. Thousands of people will come to the Songkran Festival. June this year 1 1 is the Dragon Boat Festival, and "boat racing and water splashing" will be staged as scheduled. At that time, you can come here with your relatives and friends to soak in the sea and enjoy yourself.
The ancient crossing of the Han River in Song Dynasty was one of the starting points of the Maritime Silk Road. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it developed into the general port of Quanzhou Port and became the ferry terminal with Taiwan Province dry port. The "Water Splashing Festival at Sea" was first seen in the Ming Dynasty. On the Dragon Boat Festival every year, people on both sides of the strait organize the Hanjiang River and Lugang to celebrate and bless the ferry boat, and the crew dressed in costumes splash water on each other during the sea race. According to statistics, every year during the Dragon Boat Festival, as many as 50,000 people go to the Lijiang River to watch "boat racing and water splashing", which has become a water splashing festival.
Harbin people watch the Dragon Boat Festival and go for an outing.
Harbin News The Dragon Boat Festival in the south is the beginning of the hot summer, while in the northeast it is spring, so Harbin people have the custom of vigil and outing on the Dragon Boat Festival. In order to meet the citizens' demand for night trips and boats on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival, on June 1 1 Dragon Boat Festival, there were 37 bus lines in the city starting from 2 am, and 6 ferry lines were open day and night from June 10 to June1day.
This year's Dragon Boat Festival just happened to catch up with Saturday, giving people plenty of time for an outing. Go camping in Erlong Mountain, hold a large bonfire buffet picnic on Erlong Lake, cook fish in the lake, wash your face with the lake in the morning of Dragon Boat Festival, and then collect wild Artemisia; Or go to Maoershan in Shangzhi County, sleep on the farmer's kang, eat the pancakes laid by the shopkeeper, and taste fresh vegetables and fruits such as vegetables, melons and strawberries cultivated with natural mineral water; Or go to Yabuli Mountain Villa to participate in the family climbing and Artemisia harvesting contest and eat fried dumplings, which are all preferred by Harbin people. Qingfeng Cheying Club also organized a "10,000 people walking" driving activity. On the morning of the Dragon Boat Festival, a dragon boat race will be held on the Songhua River. Sailors on the dragon boat and their trumpets will sing the Dragon Boat Festival songs with tens of thousands of citizens on both sides of the strait.
Hefei citizens can also play dragon boats.
Hefei News Dragon Boat Race has always been dominated by full-time players. This year's Dragon Boat Festival, Hefei citizens can also try their hand. Under the special arrangement of Hefei Sports Bureau, all citizens aged 65 and 438+08 to 60 who are healthy and can swim can sign up at Nanfeihe River and board the dragon boat, and experience what it is like to row the dragon boat with the cooperation of full-time helmsman and rower. The eight dragon boats of this activity are ready to go.
Looking for Dragon Boat Festival in the streets of Shanghai
For example, in Shanghai's bustling business districts, high-end business districts and fashionable shopping malls, it is impossible to show any festive atmosphere like Christmas during the Dragon Boat Festival. Only the shops and staff canteens in the business district supply a large number of zongzi and salted eggs, which shows that office workers are approaching the Dragon Boat Festival. Even Yuyuan Old Street, Longhua and Zhujiajiao Ancient Town, which are performing traditional Jiangnan folk customs every day, have not specially arranged special activities to highlight Jiangnan Dragon Boat Festival customs this year. This year's dragon boat race has changed from a traditional race to a standard championship, so it will be very troublesome to move from Suzhou River to the water sports ground beside Dianshan Lake.
However, some customs of Dragon Boat Festival still remain in streets and residential areas.
In the morning, on the roadside of Tianlin New Village in Xuhui District, I saw an aunt go home to buy food and bring back a bunch of calamus and wormwood, as well as a bunch of Zongzuo. I knew that even in high-rise residential areas, there will always be people who don't forget to hang a bunch of calamus and wormwood at the door during the Dragon Boat Festival, and there will always be people floating around the community with homemade Zongzuoxiang. When I went to the food market, I saw a small tricycle selling calamus and wormwood, a pile of star anise and a pile of 52 yuan. People who buy it are also in an endless stream. If you don't want to hang it at the door, you can also put it in a vase as a flower arrangement. Most of the people who buy zongzi are middle-aged and elderly women, and they have the skills of making zongzi. Jiaozi, with a green package on the stall, is very eye-catching. The meat inside can be as fat as the buyer wants. If you buy it and cook it yourself, you can smell the fragrance of a room, and then buy a bunch of jiaozi and hang it as decoration. Many people also choose some sachets from vendors selling colored sachets to take home. Maybe some of the colorful sachets hung on girls' bags in the street came from here.
If you go to the alleys or suburban towns in the old city of Shanghai, the atmosphere will be stronger and the sales of Acorus calamus, Aipeng and Zongzuo will be better. When you walk into an alley or an alley, you can always smell the smell of jiaozi cooked by someone. Some zongzi here are given to relatives and friends every year. My friends never buy zongzi, but what they eat every year is given by my sister who lives in the old city and my sister-in-law in Qingpu.
In Shanghai's high-end residential areas, there is a special liking for the Dragon Boat Festival, but it is a residential area where Taiwanese businessmen live together. Many Taiwanese businessmen still keep the tradition of returning to their hometown for the Spring Festival during the Dragon Boat Festival.
In Shanghai, where the atmosphere of the Dragon Boat Festival is getting weaker and weaker, the education department is doing a practical thing to inherit folk culture: traditional ethnic festivals such as the Dragon Boat Festival and the Double Ninth Festival have now been included in the content of moral education in primary and secondary schools.
A week before the Dragon Boat Festival this year, many schools in Shanghai launched educational activities with the theme of Dragon Boat Festival in due course. At the flag-raising ceremony of Quyang No.4 Primary School on Monday morning, the teacher of the Youth League Branch told the children the story of the patriotic poet Qu Yuan and recited Qu Yuan's poems. In the painting class, children draw Qu Yuan, dragon boats and zongzi, and some classes also publish blackboard newspapers on the Dragon Boat Festival. Jiguang junior middle school has carried out ethnic traditional education in four classes of junior middle school. Each class held a class meeting with the theme of "approaching Qu Yuan". The class teacher told the children about the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival and its relationship with the story of Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet, who threw himself into the river. The students also spontaneously organized a reading of Qu Yuan's poems. Jiguang Middle School also asked the labor technology teacher to teach the children to make triangular zongzi with glutinous rice, bean paste and fresh meat. After wrapping and cooking, some zongzi were sent to the local nursing home for grandparents to taste. Old people bite zongzi and look at their innocent and lively grandchildren, overjoyed.
As the base of Shanghai's youth activities, the Oriental Land also held activities to commemorate the great patriotic poet Qu Yuan on the occasion of the Dragon Boat Festival. Here, people can admire the statue of Qu Yuan created by famous sculptors and commemorate this world famous person by eating zongzi, rowing dragon boats and other traditional ways.
Today's Dragon Boat Festival custom in Suzhou
Early in the morning in Gusu, near the Dragon Boat Festival, housewives who go shopping and go home often find a lot of wormwood calamus tied with red rope, with a few garlic wrapped with silk thread on it. The citizens carrying this thing formed a unique landscape in the farmers' market before the Dragon Boat Festival. In the old tradition of Suzhou, in addition to hanging wormwood and calamus, children also wear tiger-headed shoes and hats, and women and children hang various five-color sachets sewn with silk on their chests. Some time-honored pharmacies in Suzhou, such as Wang, have carefully made Dragon Boat Festival sachets, which are equipped with special Chinese medicine spices. The fragrance of herbs is refreshing, and the shapes are tiger head, pumpkin doll, sugar doll and so on. It has become a wonderful flower in traditional seasonal products. These days, customers keep coming to buy sachets, and some will buy them.
I took a dozen cute little tiger sachets to my friends and colleagues' children. Zongzi, the special food of Dragon Boat Festival, has become the fastest growing seasonal food after moon cakes. There are long queues of customers in specialty stores and various brands in supermarkets. The rice dumplings on the breakfast cart are full of fragrance. These two days, "foreign supermarkets" are also celebrating China Festival. In Carrefour supermarket, the dragon boat-shaped counter is lifelike, filled with seasonal goods such as zongzi, zongzi leaves and salted duck eggs. The "dragon" is also full of dragon flags.
The tradition of ethnic customs in China is "multi-source integration", and legends about the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival customs vary from place to place. In Suzhou, there is a custom of rowing dragon boats and making zongzi, which originated in memory of Wu Zixu, who built Suzhou into a world. At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, Wu Zixu was killed and buried behind the Xujiang River. Residents in Wudi area not only set up shrines, but also commemorated him with dragon boat races. According to this calculation, the history of dragon boat race in Wudi Dragon Boat Festival is more than 200 years earlier than that of offering sacrifices to Qu Yuan.
In memory of Wu Zixu, there are many folk stories in Suzhou, such as Wu Zixu building Gusu City, helping Sun Wu write Sun Tzu's Art of War, Dongshan marrying Xu Mu, assisting the prince to dominate and so on. There are ancient Xumen, Xujiang, Xukou and other places, Wu Xiangci and Panmen Scenic Area, Wu Zixu statue standing outside the ancient Xumen, and 50% of Xukou Town near Taihu Lake, and the original site of Xuwang Tomb was built on Xujiang River connecting Taihu Lake. The area around Guxumen, named after Wu Zixu, and Baihuazhou, which is connected with it, used to be a water horse station for land and water transportation in Gusu in history. With the completion of the scenic belt around the ancient city, the renovation of the ancient Xumen city wall and the renovation of Baihuazhou Park, this area has regained its brilliance, and now it has become an important place for tourism and community cultural activities, and has gradually formed a Xumen commercial city integrating hotels, exhibitions and businesses.
In recent years, in Baihuazhou and other places, Suzhou citizens often celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival by showing their folk cultural activities. On the day of Dragon Boat Festival, the performances of Baihuazhou Dragon Lantern and Lion Dance, Lotus Boat Dance, Clam Shell Dance, Mulan Fan, Waist Drum Team, Big Head Doll, Float Horse Parade, Wumen Painting and Calligraphy, the ingenious "Zongzi King" Final, Dragon Boat Race and so on made wonderful appearances. The most interesting thing is the dumpling contest. The old mothers who took part in the contest were full of energy and tried their best to make various styles of zongzi, some of which were unprecedented.