The Dragon Boat Festival, held on 22 June this year, is a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated with dragon boat racing and eating zongzi.

Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian took to social media to greet the Filipino-Chinese community on this occasion.

“As we celebrate this special occasion all over China and the world, I wish all our Filipino and Chinese friends a life as energized as rowing dragon boats, bonds as tight as a neatly wrapped zongzi, and an overall healthy and happy Dragon Boat Festival!”

The Dragon Boat Festival, according to the Chinese envoy, dates back to more than 2,000 years ago. He said it is a celebration filled with “rich customs and traditions that focuses on one’s health”.

It includes “enjoying the traditional zongzi or the Chinese ‘triangle suman’, drinking realgar wine, hanging Chinese mugwort leaves and calamus plants in one’s home, and other practices to ward off evil spirits and discourage diseases.”

Moreover, the festivities, Huang added, would not be complete without attending or joining in Dragon Boat races, an activity that both the Filipinos and the Chinese enjoy playing as a sport or hobby.

The Dragon Boat Festival is held on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar. According to Chinese historians, the event originated as a search for the body of Qu Yuan (339-278 BCE), one of the greatest poets of ancient China, who was banished to the south of the Yangtze River for advocating an unpopular resistance policy.