JISHOU, HUNAN — These Chinese holidays just sneak up on me, I swear. I knew about Mid-Autumn Festival and Spring Festival before I came here, but some others I learn about just a few days before, it seems.
Because of my temporarily sparse teaching schedule, getting a day off Thursday for Duan Wu — the Dragon Boat Festival — gave me almost a five-day holiday. Too bad I had not made any plans ahead of time.
But I managed to find things to do, and see.
First, a primer on Duan Wu. This traditional holiday has roots going back (like almost everything in China) thousands of years. Its origins are so ancient that there are different stories about the reason for the holiday.
Until recently, the national government had banned many traditional holidays as national days off, but in the last few years, the Party has reinstated several traditional holidays (another is QingMing — Tomb Sweeping Day) to give the hardworking Chinese public some respite.
There are two key customs associated with Duan Wu: dragon boat racing and zongze. One I did not see. The other I ate a lot of.
Dragon boats are long, seating at least 12 paddlers and many times more. Every town or city with a large enough navigable body of water sponsors boat races. I had planned to go to Yuanling, near Fenghuang, to see a traditional dragon boat race, but heavy rains forced the postponement of the race. Fenghuang did not cancel its race, but my friend and I decided not to brave both sloppy weather and the inevitable crowds there. The Yuanling races will be next month sometime.
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