Dragon Boat Festival... Cherry Time 😊

Gordon Dumoulin
Jun 3, 2022
2 min read

Today is Duanwu Festival (端午节, Duānwǔ jié), also called Dragon Boat Festival outside China. The festival falls each year on the 5th day of the 5th month in the Chinese lunisolar calendar (therefore Duanwu, "double 5") and is known for zongzi (粽子) or sticky rice dumplings, dragon boat races and Qu Yuan 屈原 (340-287 BC), poet and minister during the Warring States Period in China committing suicide after being exiled.

The fifth lunar month is considered a vulnerable month with increased chances for bad luck and infectious illnesses. In old days, people would put herbs above the doors during the Festival to scare evil away and until early last century, Duanwu was also called the Festival of Five Poisonous Insects (毒虫节), considered the worst time in summer for insects to infect people.

The festival has been an official holiday in China since 2008 and each region in China has its own traditions.

For us, the festival is all about cherries 😊. Our family village at the rural outskirts of Tongzhou district at the east side of Beijing is known for its cherry farms during this time of harvest. We usually invite friends to one of our family relative’s farms in the village to pick cherries during the Dragon Boat Festival, usually ending up with a barbecue in the evening. Due to the current COVID circumstances, we skipped the event for this year.

Though we naturally continued our other annual tradition last night delivering around dozens of boxes of cherries from the farm in Tongzhou district to friends, relatives, business relations, my wife’s old teachers and others to enjoy the delicious cherries during the Festival.