The Dragon Boat Festival, one of China’s most significant traditional festivals, commemorates the life and death of Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet from ancient China. Legend has it that in 278 BC, after learning of his motherland’s fall, Qu Yuan drowned himself in the Miluo River. The local people, deeply grieved, raced out in their boats to search for his body, throwing zongzi into the water to prevent fish from eating his remains. Since then, the customs of dragon boat racing and eating zongzi on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month have endured through the ages.
As we celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival, I hope your life is as rich and colorful as the festival’s traditions, and your future as bright as the summer sun.