Taboos and things to do during the Dragon Boat Festival in 2022 to receive good luck and avoid bad luck

In folklore, people often think and tell each other what to do and what not to do during the Lunar New Year to receive good luck and avoid bad luck.

Legend of the Dragon Boat Festival

The Dragon Boat Festival – a traditional New Year’s Day in Vietnam and some Southeast Asian countries – is celebrated on the 5th of the 5th lunar month every year. This year, the Dragon Boat Festival falls on June 3 of the solar calendar. In fact, the Dragon Boat Festival is an Asian New Year custom associated with the concept of the circulation of the weather in the year.

A tray of offerings for the Lunar New Year. Illustration.

Tet Doan Ngo comes from the dictionary of folk tales.

This parable has many different versions. Accordingly, a year when farmers were celebrating because of a good harvest, insects came and ate the harvested fruit and food.

The villagers had a headache and didn’t know how to solve this pest problem, suddenly an old man came from afar, claiming to be Doi Trun. He showed how for people in each house to set up a simple offering consisting of banh gio and fruit.

The people obeyed, and after a while, the worms flew away.

The old man also added: Every year bugs on this day are very aggressive, every year on this day, just do what I told you to treat them.

The people were grateful to them, but the old man was gone.

To commemorate the above incident, people set this day as the ‘Tet to kill insects’, some people call it ‘Tet Doan Ngo’, because the worshiping time is usually in the middle of the Horse hour.

Since then, folk often worship on the Day of the Dragon with a number of popular seasonal dishes and fruits such as: sticky rice, sticky rice, ash cake, plum, litchi…

Currently, the Lunar New Year is still very important. This is also an opportunity for children and grandchildren from all over the world to come back and reunite with their families.

During the Lunar New Year, you should bathe in leaf water from nature. Illustration.

1. Taboos in Dragon Boat Festival

– Abstain from messy shoes: In Chinese, shoes are homophones with the word “ta”, which means evil spirit. On weekdays, and especially on the Day of the Dragon Boat Festival, it is easy to leave the wrong shoes in the wrong place to attract evil spirits.

– Avoid dropping money: Losing money or wallet during the Dragon Boat Festival is like losing your fortune, fortune will go down. When traveling on this day, whether far or near, you also need to pay attention to keep money carefully.

– Do not buy items with strange shapes: During the Lunar New Year, if you are traveling or going far away and intend to buy souvenirs, you should avoid buying items with strange shapes, unknown origins and meanings to avoid bringing more evil.

– Do not choose the first or last room in the hallway when staying at a hotel or motel: According to feng shui, these two positions are easy to absorb negative energy, which is not good for health. In particular, do not stay in rooms decorated with religious objects such as paintings, Buddha statues, saints… Because the main effect of these items is to suppress evil spirits, proving that the room has problems. .

– Avoid stopping in murky places: If you go out on this day, you should stay away from hospitals and funerals because these places are too heavy, easy to attract diseases and evil spirits.

2. Things to do on Dragon Boat Festival

– Perform insect killing rites

The ancients believed that in the human body, especially the digestive system, there are often hidden insects that live, if not eradicated, the insects will multiply and multiply, causing harm to humans. These insects only appear on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month, so they have to do an insecticidal ceremony on this day.

According to traditional beliefs, it is possible to kill insects by eating food and fruits on May 5.

Northerners often kill insects as soon as they wake up in the morning and kill insects with food, especially with ash cakes and fruits…

– Bath with leaf water from nature

Usually, on the 5th of May, after eating rice and wine to kill insects, people will bathe with water to boil coriander leaves, perilla leaves, marjoram, lemongrass leaves, bamboo leaves… The ancients said: take a bath Leaves smell to sweat out, have a pleasant feeling, fragrant makes people excited. This way of bathing can treat colds because coriander leaves are a male medicine.

– Should wash hair, steam fragrant leaves

Against the sweltering heat of noon (summer day), old and young people often boil leaves such as pomelo, coriander, perilla, marjoram, lemongrass, bamboo… to bathe and prevent colds.

In particular, women also wash their hair, wishing to have long, smooth, black hair. This is a healing method of the ancients, helping the body to detox, relax the spirit, and euphoria.

* The information in the article is for reference only.