Dragon boat festival keeps the beast at bay

Dragon boat festival keeps the beast at bay

如何用英文畅聊端午节?

Traditional Chinese festivals always have their symbolic foods. The Dragon Boat Festival - or Duanwu Festival - features zongzi, or sticky rice dumplings.

中国传统节日总有属于它们的象征性食物。端午节，又称龙舟节，它的特色食物就是粽子。

There is always a core idea behind each festival. For the Dragon Boat Festival, which falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, getting rid of disease, avoiding disasters and wishing for good health are the core ideas.

每个节日背后总有一个核心思想。对农历五月初五的端午节而言，它的核心思想是祛病消灾、祈福健康。

Wen Yiduo (1899-1946), a poet and academic, wrote that on the fifth day of the fifth month, people threw rice dumplings into the water and raced the dragon boats - activities expressing awe of the dragon below and the hope that it will not make trouble in the days to come.

诗人及学者闻一多(1899-1946)曾写道，五月初五，人们会将粽子丢入水中，并举行赛龙舟的活动--这些节日活动意在表达对水中龙的敬畏，祈求龙不要在未来的日子里给人们带来灾祸。

Besides racing dragon boats, people also hang sweet sedge and wormwood on their front doors, drink realgar wine and make pouches filled with herbs, all customs to get rid of evil spirits.

除了赛龙舟，人们还在门前挂菖蒲和艾草、喝雄黄酒、做装有草药的香囊，这些都是端午辟邪的习俗。

The history of the Duanwu Festival dates to the Warring States Period (475-221 BC). The most widely known story of Duanwu in contemporary China is that it was started to remember Qu Yuan, a patriotic official from the state of Chu (today's Hubei province) who committed suicide on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. People rowed a boat to find him but failed, so they threw sticky rice dumplings into the river so the dragon underwater would not eat his body.

端午节的历史可以追溯到战国时期(公元前475-221年)。当代中国最广为人知的端午节起源故事就是纪念屈原，相传战国时期，楚国(今湖北省)爱国士大夫屈原于农历五月初五投汨罗江自尽，以身殉国。据传后来人们试图划船寻找他的尸体，但最终没有找到，于是人们将糯米包成粽子扔进河里，这样水下的龙就不会吃他的尸体。