The opening ceremony of 2020 Dragon Boat Cultural Festival was launched in Zigui County(hometown of Qu Yuan) on June 22. Different from previous years’ festivals, specific processes were simplified and live parts were reduced this time while the method of “site + cloud” was adopted for the first time during the ceremony. The picture shows the opening ceremony. (Xinhua News Agency ，Photo by Zheng Jiayu)
(Reporter Wang Ying; Correspondent Xiang Hongmei, Nie Shuang) On June 22, the opening ceremony of 2020 Dragon Boat Cultural Festival also named the memorial ceremony of Dragon Boat Festival was held in Zigui, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the people’s Government of Hubei Province. Zhou Ji, member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee and secretary of the Municipal Party Committee, announced the opening of the festival by video recording and Xiao Juhua, the Vice Governor of Hubei province, addressed for the ceremony via video recording.
At 8:30 a.m., the opening ceremony was launched in the rain. According to current epidemic prevention circumstance, specific procedures of this time were simplified while number of on-site personnel was strictly limited and on-site + “cloud” approach was adopted for the first time. Millions of Chinese celebrated Dragon Boat Festival in “cloud” through live webcasts of more than 10 media platforms and paid tribute to the earliest ancestor poet, Qu Yuan.
Xiao Juhua said that Dragon Boat Cultural Festival in Qu Yuan’s hometown has been held for five years and has become a cultural brand with Qu Yuan’s hometown characteristics, forming a national model and having worldwide influence. This time, “Dragon Boat Festival in Poetic Yichang” is regarded as the theme to hold traditional memorial ceremony, inheriting and innovating closely followed requirements of the era while the thought of “festival in cloud” is integrated to show permanent charm of Chinese culture and style of era through various forms, expressing Chinese ambition to move forward again with raising fighting spirit and strive for a relatively comfortable life together. Provincial party committee and the provincial government have always attached great importance to cultural construction and people of the whole province will thoroughly study and apply important speech spirits of Xi Jinping, being active, enthusiastic and responsible to endeavor to achieve something, deeply digging historical and cultural resources, promoting overall prosperity of cultural undertakings, accelerating the development of cultural industry, firmly achieving “double win” of the epidemic prevention and development of economy and society and striving to write a new chapter of high quality development of Hubei province.
Music and dance, solemn and unsophisticated, drew the curtain of Dragon Boat Festival in Qu Yuan’s hometown. Those who came to present flower baskets in front of the statue of Qu Yuan were member of the Standing Committee of the Municipal Party Committee and minister of publicity department, Wang Guobin, deputy Mayor, Zhou Zhengying and leaders of Zigui County. Representatives who presented bluegrass were advanced epidemic prevention models and medical workers, moral models, advanced poverty-alleviation models and representatives of business circles, cultural and educational communities and other sectors of society. The descendants of Zigui County burn joss sticks, worship on bended knees and scatter petals.
At the same time, descendants of Qu from both sides across the Strait joined together to worship their ancestors, scattered flowers and prayed for blessings, expressing the confidence and determination of Chinese nation to help each other despite difficulties and dangers. Wang Meng, honorary vice-chairman of Chinese Writers Association (CWA), recited the poem “Ode of Qu Yuan” via the Internet. After that, the dance possessed prominent features was shown at the end of the ceremony. The video recording program “Zigui” reverberated historical accumulation of Qu Yuan’s hometown for thousands of years while “Shared Destiny” showed citizen’s power for uniting as one against the epidemic.
It is reported that 2020 is the 1200 anniversary of Qu Yuan’s Temple while this festival is the 6thfestival held by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the People’s Government of Hubei Province jointly. In September 2013, Dragon Boat Festival in Qu Yuan’s hometown, as an important cultural activity reserved by the state, was ensured to hold in Yichang for a long time with the approval of National Leading Group for cleaning up and standardizing festival activities. The Ministry of Culture specifies that “Dragon Boat Festival in Qu Yuan’s hometown” is the only national cultural festival of Dragon Boat Festival.
According to the idea of “cloud festival”, series of online activities were also carried out including exhibition of Qu Yuan’s hometown and Dragon Boat Festival customs, development of Dragon Boat Festival Wechat mini programs, living stream and Tik Tok of Zigui county. Netizens and local people had unprecedented experience participating in the traditional festival through these innovative forms, contents and ways.