Facts on Dragon Boat Festival

Dragon Boat Festival Facts

Check out these interesting facts about Dragon Boat Festival, one of the major Chinese festivals:

• The Dragon Boat Festival officially falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese Lunar Calendar.
• The Dragon Boat Festival is also known as "Double Fifth Day".
• In China, the Dragon Boat Festival is popularly known as the "Duanwu" Festival (in Mandarin Chinese pronunciation) or Tuen Ng Festival (in Cantonese Chinese pronunciation) is a Chinese traditional and statutory holiday.
• "Duan Wu" was celebrated in mainland China as a public holiday for the first time in 2008.
• In mainland China and Taiwan, the Dragon Boat Festival is a public holiday and known as the "Duanwu Jie".
• Dragon boat racing was listed into the Chinese state sports competition programs for the first time in 1980.
• The Chinese government made "Duan Wu" a national holiday in the People's Republic of China in the year 2007.
• The International Dragon Boat Federation (IDBF) organizes dragon boat races and sets standards and regulations for the sport.
• As per the Georgian calendar, the "Double Fifth Day" (5th day of the 5th Chinese lunar month) falls on June 27 in 2009, June 16 in 2010 and June 6 in 2011.
• In the early years of the formation of the Republic of China, Duan Wu was also celebrated as "Poets' Day," owing to the fact that the festival is commonly believed to be a commemoration of the death of Qu Yuan, supposed to be the first poet of China.
• Dragon boat races are typically 500 meters, but occasionally there are 250m, 1000m, 2000m and marathon races.
• Dragon boat racing is said to have originated in Southern China over 2000 years ago.
• Dragon boat racing is practiced in over 50 countries and territories around the world.