China celebrates Dragon Boat Festival

The Chinese celebrated one of the main holidays of the country - the Dragon Boat Festival.

This holiday has other names - Day of the poet or the Double Fifth. Only the date remains unchanged - the 5th day of the 5th month in the Chinese lunar calendar. This year the holiday was celebrated on June 12th.

The festival, held annually, is dedicated to Qu Yuan's suicide - a poet of the era of Warring States. 

To save the body of the great poet from the fish, peasants rushed to get into their boats and they started to beat their drums loudly, throwing rice to the hungry fish. Thus was how this ancient tradition was born.

This year, the Chinese  people received congratulations from three Chinese astronauts from Shenzhou spacecraft.