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50-531: The Dragon Boat Festival ( traditional Chinese : 端午節 ; simplified Chinese : 端午节 ; pinyin : Duānwǔ jié ) is a traditional Chinese holiday that occurs on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese calendar , which corresponds to late May or early June in the Gregorian calendar . The holiday commemorates Qu Yuan who was the beloved prime minister of the southern Chinese state of Chu during

100-636: A bid to boost traditional culture. The Dragon Boat Festival is unofficially observed by the Chinese communities of Southeast Asia, including Singapore and Malaysia . Equivalent and related official festivals include the Korean Dano , Japanese Tango no sekku , and Vietnamese Tết Đoan Ngọ . Three of the most widespread activities conducted during the Dragon Boat Festival are eating (and preparing) zongzi , drinking realgar wine , and racing dragon boats . Dragon boat racing has

150-522: A ceremony commemorating Wu Zixu during the Dragon Boat Festival, Cao Xu accidentally fell into the Shun River . Cao E, in an act of filial piety , searched the river for 3 days trying to find him. After five days, she and her father were both found dead in the river from drowning. Eight years later, in 151, a temple was built in Shangyu dedicated to the memory of Cao E and her sacrifice. The Shun River

200-509: A certain extent in South Korea , remain virtually identical to traditional characters, with variations between the two forms largely stylistic. There has historically been a debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters . Because the simplifications are fairly systematic, it is possible to convert computer-encoded characters between the two sets, with the main issue being ambiguities in simplified representations resulting from

250-414: A game of making an egg stand at noon (this "game" implies that if someone succeeds in making the egg stand at exactly 12:00 noon, that person will receive luck for the next year), and writing spells . All of these activities, together with the drinking of realgar wine or water, were regarded by the ancients (and some today) as effective in preventing disease or evil while promoting health and well-being. In

300-577: A pyramid shape. The leaves also give a special aroma and flavor to the sticky rice and fillings. Choices of fillings vary depending on regions. Northern regions in China prefer sweet or dessert-styled zongzi, with bean paste, jujube, and nuts as fillings. Southern regions in China prefer savory zongzi, with a variety of fillings including eggs and meat. Zongzi appeared before the Spring and Autumn period and were originally used to worship ancestors and gods. In

350-599: A rich history of ancient ceremonial and ritualistic traditions, which originated in southern central China more than 2500 years ago. The legend starts with the story of Qu Yuan, who was a minister in one of the Warring State governments, Chu. He was slandered by jealous government officials and banished by the king. Out of disappointment in the Chu monarch, he drowned himself in the Miluo River. The common people rushed to

400-613: A standard set of Chinese character forms used to write Chinese languages . In Taiwan , the set of traditional characters is regulated by the Ministry of Education and standardized in the Standard Form of National Characters . These forms were predominant in written Chinese until the middle of the 20th century, when various countries that use Chinese characters began standardizing simplified sets of characters, often with characters that existed before as well-known variants of

450-462: A statesman of the Kingdom of Wu . King Goujian of the state of Yue sends Xi Shi , a beautiful woman, to the state of Wu to distract its King Fuchai from state affairs. Wu Zixu sees through the plot and warned Fuchai, who became angry and forced the latter to commit suicide. His body was thrown into the river on the fifth day of the fifth month. After his death, in places such as Suzhou , Wu Zixu

500-869: Is 産 (also the accepted form in Japan and Korea), while in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan the accepted form is 產 (also the accepted form in Vietnamese chữ Nôm ). The PRC tends to print material intended for people in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and overseas Chinese in traditional characters. For example, versions of the People's Daily are printed in traditional characters, and both People's Daily and Xinhua have traditional character versions of their website available, using Big5 encoding. Mainland companies selling products in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan use traditional characters in order to communicate with consumers;

550-465: Is related to the number 5. For example, the Guangdong and Hong Kong regions have the tradition of having congee made from 5 different beans. Realgar wine or Xionghuang wine is a Chinese alcoholic drink that is made from Chinese liquor dosed with powdered realgar , a yellow-orange arsenic sulfide mineral. It was traditionally used as a pesticide, and as a common antidote against disease and venom. On

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600-422: Is remembered during the Dragon Boat Festival. Although Wu Zixu is commemorated in southeast Jiangsu and Qu Yuan elsewhere in China, much of Northeastern Zhejiang , including the cities of Shaoxing , Ningbo and Zhoushan , celebrates the memory of the young girl Cao E (130–144 AD) instead. Cao E's father Cao Xu ( 曹盱 ) was a shaman who presided over local ceremonies at Shangyu . In 143, while presiding over

650-493: The Chinese Commercial News , World News , and United Daily News all use traditional characters, as do some Hong Kong–based magazines such as Yazhou Zhoukan . The Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified characters. DVDs are usually subtitled using traditional characters, influenced by media from Taiwan as well as by the two countries sharing the same DVD region , 3. With most having immigrated to

700-490: The Chinese dragon , traditionally represents masculine energy , whereas the moon, like the phoenix , traditionally represents feminine energy . The summer solstice is considered the annual peak of male energy while the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, represents the annual peak of feminine energy. The masculine image of the dragon has thus become associated with the Dragon Boat Festival. Traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters are

750-1013: The Kensiu language . Miluo River Originating in Xiushui County of Jiangxi province, the Miluo river is about 400 kilometres (250 mi) long. It passes Pingjiang county in Hunan and empties into Dongting Lake in Miluo city . The river is formed by the confluence of the Mi and Luo rivers, of which the Mi river is the main branch. The two rivers become the Miluo river after joining in Daqiuwan (大丘灣), Miluo city. 29°00′04″N 112°57′00″E  /  29.00111°N 112.95000°E  / 29.00111; 112.95000 This article related to

800-458: The Miluo River . It is said that the local people, who admired him, raced out in their boats to save him, or at least retrieve his body. This is said to have been the origin of dragon boat races . When his body could not be found, they dropped balls of sticky rice into the river so that the fish would eat them instead of Qu Yuan's body. This is said to be the origin of zongzi . During

850-640: The Shanghainese -language character U+20C8E 𠲎 CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-20C8E —a composition of 伐 with the ⼝   'MOUTH' radical—used instead of the Standard Chinese 嗎 ; 吗 . Typefaces often use the initialism TC to signify the use of traditional Chinese characters, as well as SC for simplified Chinese characters . In addition, the Noto, Italy family of typefaces, for example, also provides separate fonts for

900-607: The Warring States period of the Zhou dynasty . A cadet member of the Chu royal house , Qu served in high offices. However, when the king decided to ally with the increasingly powerful state of Qin , Qu was banished for opposing the alliance and even accused of treason. During his exile, Qu Yuan wrote a great deal of poetry . Eventually, Qin captured Ying , the Chu capital. In despair, Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowning himself in

950-606: The Warring States period , about 600 B.C. to 200 B.C., and is celebrated by holding dragon boat races and eating sticky rice dumplings called zongzi , which were southern Chinese traditions. Dragon Boat Festival integrates praying for good luck and taking respite from the summer heat. In September 2009, UNESCO officially approved the holiday's inclusion in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity , becoming

1000-422: The dragon king , while dragon boat racing naturally reflects a reverence for the dragon and the active yang energy associated with it. This was merged with the tradition of visiting friends and family on boats. Another suggestion is that the festival celebrates a widespread feature of east Asian agrarian societies: the harvest of winter wheat. Offerings were regularly made to deities and spirits at such times: in

1050-468: The American sociologist Wolfram Eberhard wrote that it was more widely celebrated in southern China than in the north. Another theory is that the Dragon Boat Festival originated from dragon worship . This theory was advanced by Wen Yiduo . Support is drawn from two key traditions of the festival: the tradition of dragon boat racing and zongzi . The food may have originally represented an offering to

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1100-601: The Dragon Boat Festival, people may put realgar wine on parts of children's faces to repel the five poisonous creatures. In some regions of China, people, especially children, wear silk ribbons or threads of 5 colors (blue, red, yellow, white, and black, representing the five elements ) on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival. People believe that this will help keep evil away. Other common activities include hanging up icons of Zhong Kui (a mythic guardian figure), hanging mugwort and calamus , taking long walks, and wearing perfumed medicine bags. Other traditional activities include

1150-559: The Dragon Boat Festival.   ... Now about this Feast. It is also called the Dragon Boat Feast. The fifth of the fifth moon at noon was the most poisonous hour for the poisonous insects, and reptiles such as frogs, lizards, snakes, hide in the mud, for that hour they are paralyzed. Some medical men search for them at that hour and place them in jars, and when they are dried, sometimes use them as medicine. Her Majesty told me this, so that day I went all over everywhere and dug into

1200-588: The Festival of Five Poisonous/Venomous Insects ( traditional Chinese : 毒蟲節 ; simplified Chinese : 毒虫节 ; pinyin : Dúchóng jié ; Wade–Giles : Tu-chʻung-chieh ). Yu Der Ling writes in chapter 11 of her 1911 memoir Two Years in the Forbidden City : The first day of the fifth moon was a busy day for us all, as from the first to the fifth of the fifth moon was the festival of five poisonous insects, which I will explain later—also called

1250-562: The Jin dynasty, zongzi dumplings were officially designated as the Dragon Boat Festival food. At this time, in addition to glutinous rice, the Chinese medicine yizhiren ( Alpinia oxyphylla ) was added to the ingredients for making zongzi. This cooked zongzi is called yizhi zong . 'Wu' (午) in the name 'Duanwu' has a pronunciation similar to that of the number 5 in multiple Chinese dialects, and thus many regions have traditions of eating food that

1300-555: The People's Republic of China, traditional Chinese characters are standardised according to the Table of Comparison between Standard, Traditional and Variant Chinese Characters . Dictionaries published in mainland China generally show both simplified and their traditional counterparts. There are differences between the accepted traditional forms in mainland China and elsewhere, for example the accepted traditional form of 产 in mainland China

1350-532: The United States during the second half of the 19th century, Chinese Americans have long used traditional characters. When not providing both, US public notices and signs in Chinese are generally written in traditional characters, more often than in simplified characters. In the past, traditional Chinese was most often encoded on computers using the Big5 standard, which favored traditional characters. However,

1400-406: The ancient Yue, dragon kings; in the ancient Chu, Qu Yuan; in the ancient Wu, Wu Zixu (as a river god); in ancient Korea , mountain gods (see Dano ). As interactions between different regions increased, these similar festivals eventually merged into one holiday. In the early 20th century the Dragon Boat Festival was observed from the first to the fifth days of the fifth month, and was also known as

1450-462: The early years of the Republic of China , Duanwu was celebrated as the "Poets' Day" due to Qu Yuan's status as China's first known poet. In Taiwanese tradition, balancing an egg on Duanwu is said to bring good fortune for the rest of the year. The sun is considered to be at its strongest around the time of the summer solstice, as the daylight in the northern hemisphere is the longest. The sun, like

1500-461: The festival first appeared during the early Han dynasty. The stories of both Qu Yuan and Wu Zixu were recorded in Sima Qian 's Shiji , completed 187 and 393 years after the respective events, because historians wanted to praise both characters. According to historians, the holiday originated as a celebration of agriculture, fertility, and rice growing in southern China . As recently as 1952

1550-420: The fifth day of the fifth month, such as snakes, centipedes, and scorpions; people also supposedly get sick easily after this day. Therefore, during the Dragon Boat Festival, people try to avoid this bad luck. For example, people may put pictures of the five venomous creatures (snake, centipede, scorpion, lizard, toad, and sometimes spider) on the wall and stick needles in them. People may also make paper cutouts of

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1600-584: The first "fifth day" of the month according to the Chinese zodiac . However, despite the literal meaning referring to the Earthly Branches , this character has also become associated with wǔ ( 五 ; wu ; 'five'), due to the characters often having the same pronunciation. Hence Duanwu , the festival on "the fifth day of the fifth month". In Cantonese , it is romanized as Tuen Ng Jit in Hong Kong and Tung Ng Jit in Macau , hence

1650-556: The first Chinese holiday to be selected. The English language name for the holiday is "Dragon Boat Festival", used as the official English translation of the holiday by the People's Republic of China . It is also referred to in some English sources as Double Fifth Festival which alludes to the day of the festival according to the Chinese calendar. The Chinese name of the festival is pronounced differently in different Chinese languages . Duanwu ( 端午 ) literally means 'starting five'—i.e.,

1700-411: The five creatures and wrap them around the wrists of their children. Big ceremonies and performances developed from these practices in many areas, making the Dragon Boat Festival a day for getting rid of disease and bad luck. The story best known in modern China holds that the festival commemorates the death of the poet and minister Qu Yuan ( c.  340 –278 BC) of the ancient state of Chu during

1750-441: The ground, but found nothing. In 2008 the Dragon Boat Festival was made a national public holiday in China . The festival was long marked as a cultural festival in China and is a public holiday in China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan . The People's Republic of China's government established in 1949 did not initially recognize the Dragon Boat Festival as a public holiday but reintroduced it in 2008 alongside two other festivals in

1800-493: The inverse is equally true as well. In digital media, many cultural phenomena imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan into mainland China, such as music videos, karaoke videos, subtitled movies, and subtitled dramas, use traditional Chinese characters. In Hong Kong and Macau , traditional characters were retained during the colonial period, while the mainland adopted simplified characters. Simplified characters are contemporaneously used to accommodate immigrants and tourists, often from

1850-725: The mainland. The increasing use of simplified characters has led to concern among residents regarding protecting what they see as their local heritage. Taiwan has never adopted simplified characters. The use of simplified characters in government documents and educational settings is discouraged by the government of Taiwan. Nevertheless, with sufficient context simplified characters are likely to be successfully read by those used to traditional characters, especially given some previous exposure. Many simplified characters were previously variants that had long been in some use, with systematic stroke simplifications used in folk handwriting since antiquity. Traditional characters were recognized as

1900-682: The majority of Chinese text in mainland China are simplified characters , there is no legislation prohibiting the use of traditional Chinese characters, and often traditional Chinese characters remain in use for stylistic and commercial purposes, such as in shopfront displays and advertising. Traditional Chinese characters remain ubiquitous on buildings that predate the promulgation of the current simplification scheme, such as former government buildings, religious buildings, educational institutions, and historical monuments. Traditional Chinese characters continue to be used for ceremonial, cultural, scholarly/academic research, and artistic/decorative purposes. In

1950-983: The merging of previously distinct character forms. Many Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between these character sets. Traditional characters are known by different names throughout the Chinese-speaking world. The government of Taiwan officially refers to traditional Chinese characters as 正體字 ; 正体字 ; zhèngtǐzì ; 'orthodox characters'. This term is also used outside Taiwan to distinguish standard characters, including both simplified, and traditional, from other variants and idiomatic characters . Users of traditional characters elsewhere, as well as those using simplified characters, call traditional characters 繁體字 ; 繁体字 ; fántǐzì ; 'complex characters', 老字 ; lǎozì ; 'old characters', or 全體字 ; 全体字 ; quántǐzì ; 'full characters' to distinguish them from simplified characters. Some argue that since traditional characters are often

2000-737: The name "Tuen Ng Festival" used in Hong Kong , and Tun Ng ( Festividade do Barco-Dragão in Portuguese ) in Macau. The fifth lunar month is considered an unlucky and poisonous month, and the fifth day of the fifth month especially so. To get rid of the misfortune, people would put calamus , Artemisia , and garlic above the doors on the fifth day of the fifth month. These were believed to help ward off evil by their strong smell and their shape (for instance, calamus leaves are shaped like swords). Venomous animals were said to appear starting from

2050-677: The official script in Singapore until 1969, when the government officially adopted Simplified characters. Traditional characters still are widely used in contexts such as in baby and corporation names, advertisements, decorations, official documents and in newspapers. The Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative in Southeast Asia regarding simplification. Although major public universities teach in simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications such as

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2100-700: The original standard forms, they should not be called 'complex'. Conversely, there is a common objection to the description of traditional characters as 'standard', due to them not being used by a large population of Chinese speakers. Additionally, as the process of Chinese character creation often made many characters more elaborate over time, there is sometimes a hesitation to characterize them as 'traditional'. Some people refer to traditional characters as 'proper characters' ( 正字 ; zhèngzì or 正寫 ; zhèngxiě ) and to simplified characters as 簡筆字 ; 简笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'simplified-stroke characters' or 減筆字 ; 减笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'reduced-stroke characters', as

2150-781: The predominant forms. Simplified characters as codified by the People's Republic of China are predominantly used in mainland China , Malaysia, and Singapore. "Traditional" as such is a retronym applied to non-simplified character sets in the wake of widespread use of simplified characters. Traditional characters are commonly used in Taiwan , Hong Kong , and Macau , as well as in most overseas Chinese communities outside of Southeast Asia. As for non-Chinese languages written using Chinese characters, Japanese kanji include many simplified characters known as shinjitai standardized after World War II, sometimes distinct from their simplified Chinese counterparts . Korean hanja , still used to

2200-636: The traditional character set used in Taiwan ( TC ) and the set used in Hong Kong ( HK ). Most Chinese-language webpages now use Unicode for their text. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends the use of the language tag zh-Hant to specify webpage content written with traditional characters. In the Japanese writing system , kyujitai are traditional forms, which were simplified to create shinjitai for standardized Japanese use following World War II. Kyūjitai are mostly congruent with

2250-985: The traditional characters in Chinese, save for minor stylistic variation. Characters that are not included in the jōyō kanji list are generally recommended to be printed in their traditional forms, with a few exceptions. Additionally, there are kokuji , which are kanji wholly created in Japan, rather than originally being borrowed from China. In the Korean writing system , hanja —replaced almost entirely by hangul in South Korea and totally replaced in North Korea —are mostly identical with their traditional counterparts, save minor stylistic variations. As with Japanese, there are autochthonous hanja, known as gukja . Traditional Chinese characters are also used by non-Chinese ethnic groups. The Maniq people living in Thailand and Malaysia use Chinese characters to write

2300-490: The twentieth century, Qu Yuan became considered a patriotic poet and a symbol of the people. He was promoted as a folk hero and a symbol of Chinese nationalism in the People's Republic of China after the 1949 Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War . The historian and writer Guo Moruo was influential in shaping this view of Qu. Another origin story says that the festival commemorates Wu Zixu (died 484 BC),

2350-518: The ubiquitous Unicode standard gives equal weight to simplified and traditional Chinese characters, and has become by far the most popular encoding for Chinese-language text. There are various input method editors (IMEs) available for the input of Chinese characters . Many characters, often dialectical variants, are encoded in Unicode but cannot be inputted using certain IMEs, with one example being

2400-585: The water and tried to recover his body, but they failed. In commemoration of Qu Yuan, people hold dragon boat races yearly on the day of his death according to the legend. They also scattered rice into the water to feed the fish, to prevent them from eating Qu Yuan's body, which is one of the origins of zongzi . A notable part of celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival is making and eating zongzi, also known as sticky rice dumplings, with family members and friends. People traditionally make zongzi by wrapping glutinous rice and fillings in leaves of reed or bamboo, forming

2450-587: The words for simplified and reduced are homophonous in Standard Chinese , both pronounced as jiǎn . The modern shapes of traditional Chinese characters first appeared with the emergence of the clerical script during the Han dynasty c.  200 BCE , with the sets of forms and norms more or less stable since the Southern and Northern dynasties period c.  the 5th century . Although

2500-559: Was renamed Cao'e River in her honor. Cao E is depicted in the Wu Shuang Pu ("Table of Peerless Heroes") by Jin Guliang. Some modern research suggests that the stories of Qu Yuan or Wu Zixu were superimposed onto a pre-existing holiday tradition. The promotion of these stories might have been encouraged by Confucian scholars, seeking to legitimize and strengthen their influence in China. The relationship between zongzi, Qu Yuan and

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