Dragon boat races attract over 55,000 people in Tianjin

A grand event combining intangible cultural heritage and a trendy shopping festival held during the weekend in the Ninghe district. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

As a 2,000-year-old tradition now recognized by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage, the Dragon Boat Festival, which falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, has been celebrated for more than two millennia.

"The dragon boat originated from worship of nature, tools and totems in traditional Chinese culture. Especially in regions along rivers, people's lives were mainly on the boat, so with the worship of boat and dragon, there came the dragon boat," Professor Song Junhua, director of the Institute of Intangible Cultural Heritage at Sun Yat-sen University, said.