The Dragon Boat Festival, also called Duanwu, is celebrated by Chinese communities around the world on the fifth day of the fifth month in the Chinese lunar calendar. This year it falls on June 22.

There are different sayings about its origin. A most popular one is that the festival is dedicated to the memory of patriotic statesman and poet Qu Yuan of the ancient state of Chu during the Warring States Period (475–221 BCE). He threw himself into the Miluo River in today's Hunan Province in despair after the capital of his home state fell into the hands of the Qin army, who fought the wars to conquer all the other states to unify China.