Row, row, row your Dragon Boat on Duanwu
2009-5-31 22:19:41 View:1785


The holiday's recognition by UNESCO previously aroused discussion among some Chinese scholars and internet users, who questioned why China was not doing more to protect and promote its own culture.

"How humiliated and outrageous we Chinese should feel at the move by South Korea to apply for UNESCO's recognition for a festival that originated in China," one internet user said in a posting on Tianya.cn.
Scholars in South Korea, however, explained that the Gangneung Dano Festival is entirely different from the Dragon Boat Festival. Although set on the same date, the two festivals celebrate different things, as the Gangneug Dano Festival in Korea was originally a sacrificial ritual to the spirits of agriculture, heaven and the mountains celebrated at the end of planting season by singing and dancing.

"It has nothing to do with dragon boat racing and zongzi eating. It's just about the local rituals to honor the spirit of nature," Xu Baokang, an expert on South Korea at People's Daily told Global Times.

National pride aside, South Korea's experience offers China a lesson about how to increase awareness about the need to protect traditional cultural heritage.

"[South Korea] has made a lot of efforts to protect its intangible cultural heritage. We should learn from it," Tian Qing, deputy director of the Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage in China, said in an interview with China Culture News.

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