Xixi Dragon Boat Festival

The Dragon Boat Race in Jiangcun Village is a traditional annual custom, celebrated annually on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. Held at Jiangcun Village in Xixi, it is famously known as the Xixi Dragon Boat Festival and is the favorite festival of the year for children and adults of all ages!

The custom came into existence during the Tang Dynasty. After hundreds of years of development, it has gradually become an essential part of Hangzhou tradition and a cherished aspect of Chinese culture. The Dragon Boat Race at Jiangcun Village is also known as “Longzhou Shenghui” which literally means the pageant of dragon boats.

Legend has it that during the Qing Dynasty, when Emperor Qianlong was inspecting the Jiangnan region, he was so tempted by the long-standing fame of the Dragon Boat Race in Jiangcun Village that he deliberately went to watch the famous race to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival. Marveling at the race, the Qianlong Emperor bestowed the race “Longzhou Shenghui (龙舟盛会)”.

Traditionally, the Dragon Boat Race in Jiangcun Village is also celebrated by praying to the Dragon King for a prosperous year ahead. This is very important to the Chinese. No matter how busy they are or how far away they are from home, Hangzhou citizens will come home to join the event. With its booming drums, myriads of colorful flags waving, and thousands of people cheering on both sides of the river, the Dragon Boat Race in Jiangcun Village is a spectacular and soul-stirring event!

The dragon boat is a marvelous blend of construction and art. The boats take the shape of the Chinese Dragon (which was the symbol of the Emperors of ancient China) with decorative dragon heads and tails and are often painted in colorful reds, whites, yellows, or blacks. As a rule, there is a steersman, a drummer, and twelve paddlers on board. With steersmen controlling the boat, paddlers frenetically row the boat in cadence with the drumbeats which is considered to be the "heartbeat" of the dragon boat.