to 200 B.C., and is celebrated by holding dragon boat races and eating sticky rice dumplings called zongzi, which were southern Chinese traditions.

[15] For example, people may put pictures of the five venomous creatures (snake, centipede, scorpion, lizard, toad, and sometimes spider[15]) on the wall and stick needles in them.

[16] 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 the Warring States period of the Zhou dynasty.

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.

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.

In 143, while presiding over a ceremony commemorating Wu Zixu during the Dragon Boat Festival, Cao Xu accidentally fell into the Shun River.

Some modern research suggests that the stories of Qu Yuan or Wu Zixu were possibly superimposed onto pre-existing holiday traditions.

[20] 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.

Another suggestion is that the festival celebrates a widespread feature of east Asian agrarian societies: the harvest of winter wheat.

[25][26] 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,[27] Japanese Tango no sekku,[28] and Vietnamese Tết Đoan Ngọ.

[29] Dragon boat racing has a rich history of ancient ceremonial and ritualistic traditions, which originated in southern central China more than 2500 years ago.

[14] In commemoration of Qu Yuan, people hold dragon boat races yearly on the day of his death according to the legend.

[14][15] 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.

[14][15] 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 a pyramid shape.

[14] Northern regions in China prefer sweet or dessert-styled zongzi, with bean paste,[15] jujube,[14] and nuts as fillings.

At this time, in addition to glutinous rice, the Chinese medicine yizhiren (Alpinia oxyphylla) was added to the ingredients for making zongzi.

[14][22] On the Dragon Boat Festival, people may put realgar wine on parts of children's faces to repel the five poisonous creatures.

[31] 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.

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.