1. Theme:
Understand the traditional festival of China-Dragon Boat Festival.
Class: Class 4, Senior One.
2. Activity purpose:
Through class meeting, students can learn about traditional festivals, learn from Qu Yuan, love the motherland, and enhance national self-esteem and self-confidence.
3. Activity preparation:
Students collect some information about the Dragon Boat Festival for communication in class meetings.
4. Activity process:
(1) Students exchange their knowledge about the Dragon Boat Festival.
The fifth day of the fifth lunar month, commonly known as the Dragon Boat Festival. End means "beginning" and "beginning". The fifth day can be called Duanwu. In the lunar calendar, the earthly branch marks the moon, the yin is built in the first month, February is the base, and May is noon in turn, so May is called noon month, and "five" is connected with "noon", and "five" is also the yang number, so the Dragon Boat Festival is also called Duanwu, Chongwu, Duanyang and Zhongtian. From the historical records, the word "Dragon Boat Festival" was first seen in the local customs of the Jin people's Zhou Dynasty: "Midsummer Dragon Boat Festival, cooking millet." Dragon Boat Festival is a traditional festival for the Han people in China. The essential activities of this day gradually evolved into: eating zongzi, racing dragon boats, hanging calamus and mugwort leaves, fumigating Atractylodes and Angelica dahurica, and drinking realgar wine. It is said that eating zongzi and dragon boat racing is to commemorate Qu Yuan, so after liberation, the Dragon Boat Festival was named "Poet's Day" to commemorate Qu Yuan. As for hanging calamus, wormwood leaves, fumigating atractylodes rhizome and angelica dahurica, drinking realgar wine is said to suppress evil spirits.
Today, the Dragon Boat Festival is still a very popular grand festival among the people of China. Dragon Boat Festival is now a national legal holiday. The state attaches great importance to the protection of intangible cultural heritage. On May 2th, 2XX, this folk custom was approved by the State Council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists.
(2) Another name for the Dragon Boat Festival.
The fifth day of the fifth lunar month is the Dragon Boat Festival, also known as Duanyang Festival, Noon Festival, May Festival, Ai Festival, Duanwu Festival, Chongwu Festival, Noon Festival and Summer Festival. Although the names are different, the customs of people everywhere are the same.
(3) Some activities held during the Dragon Boat Festival.
The Dragon Boat Festival is an old custom in China for more than 2, years. On this day, every household hangs bells, hangs mugwort leaves and calamus, races dragon boats, eats zongzi, drinks realgar wine, swims in all diseases, wears sachets and prepares sacrifices. Dragon Boat Festival commemorates Qu Yuan, a great national poet in history. Qu Yuan, named Ping, was a native of Chu in the Warring States Period. He was born on the seventh day of the first month of the Wang Wu calendar of Chu Wei, or in the twenty-seventh year of Chu Xuanwang, and died in the ninth year of King Xiang of Chu.
(4) Dragon Boat Festival customs in various places.
[Hebei province] Beiping avoids drilling wells during the Dragon Boat Festival, and often pre-draws them before the festival, which is said to avoid well poisoning. Street vendors also sell cherry mulberries on the Dragon Boat Festival. It is said that they eat cherry mulberries on the Dragon Boat Festival, but they don't eat flies by mistake all year round. "Five Poison Cakes", which are cakes decorated with five poisonous insect patterns, are sold in various food shops. Luanxian county has engaged men and women in-laws to give gifts to each other on the Dragon Boat Festival. On the Dragon Boat Festival in Zhao County, the local government will hold a party in the south of the city, inviting the literati in the city to feast and compose poems, which is called "stepping on the willow".
[Shandong Province] zouping county Dragon Boat Festival, everyone needs a drink when getting up early, which is said to ward off evil spirits. Rizhao Dragon Boat Festival wraps seven colors of thread around children, and it has to be worn until the first rain after the festival before it is untied and thrown into the rain. At the Dragon Boat Festival in Linqing County, boys under the age of seven wear symbols (necklaces made by Mai _), girls wear pomegranate flowers, and they also wear yellow shoes made by their mothers, and five kinds of poisonous insects are painted on the vamps with brush strokes. It means killing five kinds of poisonous insects with Qu Yuan's ink. Jimo washes his face with dew on the morning of Dragon Boat Festival.
[ Shanxi Province] On the Dragon Boat Festival in Xiezhou, men and women wear mugwort leaves, which is called "getting rid of diseases", while young children wear hundreds of ropes around their necks. It is said that this is "tying dragons for Qu Yuan". During the Dragon Boat Festival in Xizhou, villages offer sacrifices to the Dragon King and hang paper in the fields. The Dragon Boat Festival in Huairen County is also known as "Zhumen". On the Dragon Boat Festival in Dingxiang County, students are required to give gifts to teachers. Lu 'an House steamed dumplings with wheat flour, called "white dumplings", and presented them to each other together with zongzi.
[ Shaanxi Province ]
On the Dragon Boat Festival in Xing 'an Prefecture, local officials led their families to watch the race, which was called "stepping on the stone". At the Dragon Boat Festival in Xingping County, a small horn millet was sewn with silk, and a small doll was sewn below, which was called "playing with dolls". Tongguan County's Dragon Boat Festival is called "town disease" with Pu 'ai and paper cows sticking to the door.
5. Summary
The most significant thing about the Dragon Boat Festival is that it is the only festival in China that originated and continues to this day to commemorate real historical figures, and it is also an important festival. As we all know, the legal holidays after New China are all based on political significance. Even the traditional festivals in China are mostly due to the change of climate seasons, followed by myths and legends and the worship of local ghosts and gods. The only traditional festival, Dragon Boat Festival, is due to and used to commemorate a southern romantic poet.
In China, some famous people, almost all of whom were political figures, were sacrificed as gods by the people, but they didn't reach the level of national festivals to commemorate them. Why did a non-mainstream poet in Chu, who lived in the economically backward area in the south during the Warring States period (from that time and the whole history of poetry development) get this honor? Moreover, please note that the way he ended his life was not the generous lamentation and suicide like a chivalrous man in the Warring States period, but the more sorrowful and feminine drowning himself.
In China's philosophy of life, except for the critical juncture of honor and integrity, it seems that suicide has always been more controversial than understandable. Why did a nation that respected or "remonstrated with death" or "endured humiliation" pour so much sympathy and care into the death of a frustrated politician and poet who committed suicide? In addition, it is particularly worth mentioning that this festival was spontaneously raised by the people. This is rare in world history.
Almost all festivals that can be spontaneously commemorated by the people are related to religion. As for festivals commemorating some great political leaders or public figures, most of them are related to the actions of the government or international organizations, such as Washington, Martin Luther King, and Florence Nightingale. Why can a person, rather than a god, be closely associated with a festival spontaneously by the people?