Dragon boat races, the well-known historic celebrity Qu Yuan... Speaking of these, have you already smelled the refreshing scent of the annual Dragon Boat Festival? Although these are the most famous things about the Dragon Boat Festival, there are far more activities for us to do.

The Dragon Boat Festival is not only about sticky rice dumplings. More importantly, the major aim for the festival is what Chinese people call “eliminating the poison.” Summer is a season when all sorts of bugs such as mosquitoes are activated. In order to make them stay away from us, a wide range of traditions, from showering and food to decorations, were inherited to reach the purpose.

Every year, our family will go to the market at this time to get some special plants, both leaves and branches. Mugwort is always one of them. With another plant called calamus, it will be hung on our front door. This is considered a protection against evil spirits, and they can be boiled with water and used to bathe, and the fragrance emitted while boiling can be similar to the effects of aromatherapy. Speaking of taking a bath, what can also be used for this is peach branches and pomelo leaves. The water boiled with these can prevent miliaria.

The historic celebrity I mentioned in the first paragraph, Qu Yuan, used to decorate his clothes with plants that carried refreshing fragrances. During the Dragon Boat Festival, you can see children and teenagers running around with sachets bound to their waists. Those are not sunk in perfume; the smell of perfume is too strong and have no effects for ridding mites. The contents, in fact, are herbs. Every family and every pharmacy have their unique recipe for filling sachets, for example, mint, clove, fennel, lavender and mugwort are commonly used in many cases. People love the smell of them all mixed together, but they are even more delighted to see that there are no mosquitoes flying near them.

The focus of the Dragon Boat Festival, as I said, is eradicating the toxic stuff. There are lots of ancient tricks for this, and this is the time of year that all these tricks are applied.