Qu Yuan's Hometown Dragon Boat Festival Customs

Centred on commemorating the great Warring-States poet Qu Yuan, these customs are kept in Zigui, his birthplace, where they have been handed down for over two thousand years. Uniquely, the year holds "three Dragon Boat festivals"—the first on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, the greater on the fifteenth and the last on the twenty-fifth—each with its own rites. The item entered the first national ICH list in 2006 under folklore (code Ⅹ-3), declared by Yichang and Zigui.

During the festival, Zigui sets up altars to Qu Yuan and a soul-calling ceremony on the river, while dragon boats race to deafening drums on the Yangtze tributaries. Most literary of all is the Saotan Poetry Society, formed spontaneously by farmers since the Ming dynasty: members don long gowns and chant verse in praise of Qu Yuan, called "China's earliest farmers' poetry gathering." Other customs include wrapping zongzi, hanging mugwort and calamus, making scented sachets, bathing in mugwort water and daughters returning to their parents' home.

These customs preserve the ancient purpose of the festival—warding off misfortune and evil—while expressing reverence for Qu Yuan's patriotic spirit through rites and poetry handed down across generations. They are a core specimen for studying China's Dragon Boat culture and Chu folk custom, and in 2009 formed a key part of "Dragon Boat Festival" inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The heart of these customs is enacted at the Qu Yuan Hometown Cultural Tourism Area on Phoenix Mountain in Zigui.