First Dragon Boats, now Phoenix Boats Too!

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At Foshan, Guangdong Province, the place where the dragon-boat parade has taken place for at least 700 years, it used to be just men who could ride the dragon boats. "We believed dragons are male creatures, so men should steer and be on them," Huang Zhihua, head of a local dragon boat club, told CGTN.

Dragon boat parade /CGTN Photo

But traditions are moving on with time. This year, three Phoenix boats, decorated with phoenix figures and rode all by women, roam the interlocking waterways in the region with 40 dragon boats.

"It's also in the Chinese tradition that we identify women with phoenix bird," Huang said. The traffic rules for Phoenix and dragon boats are the same; paddlers stomp the boats up and down to show how delighted the creatures are.

Paddlers on passing boats exchange gifts as they greet each other. And they have to finish at least one round of rowing to get the "full luck."

Dragon boat parade /CGTN Photo

And keeping with their old ways of celebration, parade starts at noon-day, believed to be the most "energetic" time of the day. "We are not afraid of the heat. Instead, we get pumped up with the energy after the rides."

Paddlers also worship gods that they've placed on the boats before setting off to a full five minutes of fire-crackers and gong sounding.

Locals say the festivity, now the grandest in the province, have been picking up steam in the last decade, thanks to a national policy that promotes traditional culture and helps locals to preserve their old ways of doing things.

Dragon boat parade /CGTN Photo

"In the mid-1990s, there are very few participants, but now it's completely different.," a local villager told CGTN. The Dragon Boat Festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth month by the lunar calendar.

It had started as a somber day of commemoration remembering the honest and loyal poet Qu Yuan almost two thousand years ago.

Now, it's a holiday in full-swing not only to honor the poet of character but also to restore and revive the spirits for all.