Dragon Boat Festival or Duan Wu Jie is a Chinese festival celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth month based on Chinese calendar. Therefore, it also known as the 'Double Fifth Festival'.
This day is celebrated to commemorate the death of Qu Yuan in 287BC. Qu Yuan is a legendary Chinese patriotic poet who drown himself out of sadness when his home state fallen to a conqueror’s hand who is very corrupted.
In the past, Chinese rice dumplings largely made of glutinous rice was originally made and thrown into the river to prevent fishes from eating the body of Qu Yuan. Glutinous rice supposed to be a hard to digest food. So people hopes the fishes will get 'full feeling' and not eating the body of Qu Yuan.
Today, no rice dumplings are throw into the river instead dragon boats racing are organized to make heavy drum beating to scare away the fishes. Hence, it is also known as Dragon Boat Festival.
Nowadays, Chinese prepare the rice dumplings as a delicacy, typically made of glutinous rice, pork meat, duck yoke, chestnuts, spicy powders and many varieties which made this festival more like a 'Chinese Dumpling Festival'. The focus of the celebrations includes eating rice dumplings and racing dragon boats.
By the way, this year, the actual day for Dragon Boat Festival should be on June 23 (Saturday) but China and Hong Kong celebrated one day ahead as a holiday except Taiwan which stick on the actual day. (see table below)
The festival has also celebrated by the local Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam but it is not an official holiday there.
Asian countries celebrating Duan Wu Jie / Dragon Boat Festival this week are shown below.
| Stock Exchange | Dragon Boat Festival |
| China | June 22 (Friday) |
| Hong Kong * | June 23 (Sat.) |
| Taiwan * | June 23, 2012 (Sat.) |
* Although it is an official holiday in Hong Kong and Taiwan, but they never bring it one day ahead except China.
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