The upcoming Dragon Boat Festival is one of the three major celebrated festivals in Taiwan and falls on June 14 this year.
People will have rice dumplings, watch the dragon boat race, and do egg balancing challenges during the festival. Other customs like hanging sword-shaped leaves, such as calamus and wormwood, on the door, and children wearing colorful, fragrant sachets. The origins behind these traditional customs could be to prevent diseases that come with the summer heat.
The Dragon Boat Festival, or the so-called Duan Wu festival, is also one of the four-season celebrations in traditional Chinese culture. The other three are the Chinese New Year Spring Festival, the Moon or Mid-Autumn Festival and the Winter Solstice Festival. Because of its season-related origin, many traditional idioms reflect different regional climates based on the Duan Wu Festival. For example, in Taiwan, the Duan Wu Festival is the marking for the arrival of summertime heat. So we have the idiom saying don't put away winter clothes before you have the rice dumplings during the Duan Wu Festival.