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Dragon Boat Festival Perfume Patches Making Workshop
| Xiang bao (香包), or perfume pouches, are a traditional craft made during the Dragon Boat Festival. The pouches are good luck charm worn on the body or hung to ward off bad spirits. Let’s learn to make how to make these beautiful pouches! |
Event Invitation
There are many different traditional customs for dragon boat festival: Eating sticky rice dumplings, participating in or attending Dragon Boat races, drinking realgar wine… and wearing perfume pouches!
Before Dragon Boat Festival arrives, parents usually prepare perfume pouches for their children. They sew little bags with colourful silk cloth, fill the bags with perfumes or herbal medicines, and then string them shut with silk threads.
During Dragon Boat Festival perfume pouches are hung around people’s wrists, bags, or tied to the front of a garment as an ornament. The perfume pouches are said to protect people from evil or bad luck.
We will teach you how to make your own perfume pouches! You can choose different fabrics, perfumes, and make your own unique ornament to wear on Dragon boat festival!
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Cultural introduction
The Dragon Boat Festival, also known as Duanwu Festival, is a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated annually on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar. With a history spanning over 2,000 years, the festival commemorates the patriotic poet Qu Yuan, who drowned himself in the Miluo River in protest against corruption. To prevent fish from consuming his body, villagers raced dragon-shaped boats to rescue him, which gave rise to the modern-day dragon boat races. Today, the Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated with vibrant dragon boat races, where teams paddle vigorously to the rhythm of drums, symbolizing the spirit of unity and perseverance. Additionally, the festival is marked by the consumption of sticky rice dumplings, called zongzi, which are traditionally wrapped in bamboo leaves. These festivities not only honor the memory of Qu Yuan but also foster a sense of community and cultural pride among participants and spectators alike.