Beijing museum blends tradition and interactive culture in Dragon Boat Festival

The Beijing Folklore Museum packed in visitors during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday with a rich variety of themed cultural activities that combined traditional customs with interactive, contemporary experiences.

The Dragon Boat Festival program was organized by the Chaoyang district bureau of culture and tourism and hosted by the museum. It featured a wide range of hands-on experiences designed to bring intangible cultural heritage into everyday engagement, blending seasonal folk practices with creative workshops and immersive participation.

Visitors were invited to take part in traditional festival customs such as making festive rice dumplings, crafting herbal sachets, and recreating symbolic practices including hanging mugwort and calamus plants, which are traditionally displayed at doorways during the holiday. Organizers say these activities aimed to present seasonal traditions in a more accessible, participatory format.

Other experiences included painting auspicious tiger motifs using brush techniques adapted for younger participants, as well as interactive sticker activities based on traditional "warding off the five poisons" imagery. Participants also wore five-color silk threads, a customary symbol associated with protection and good fortune during the festival.

The program also featured traditional leisure games such as dou baicao (grass-fighting), in which visitors compared plant strength and identified different species in a light, competitive format. Organizers emphasized that the activity highlighted the ecological knowledge embedded in seasonal folk traditions.

Craft workshops were another key highlight. Visitors created festival-themed folding fans, continuing a historical custom linked to summer relief and seasonal gifting, and handmade decorative gourds, traditionally associated with auspicious meanings during the festival.

A parallel creative segment, developed in connection with an exhibition on traditional Chinese clothing culture, offered a bead-art workshop themed around Dragon Boat Festival motifs. Participants assembled designs inspired by rice dumplings and dragon boats, combining folk symbolism with contemporary craft expression.

Costumed performers portraying historical characters interacted with visitors throughout the venue, adding an immersive layer to the experience and contributing to a festive atmosphere.

According to the organizers, the program formed part of ongoing efforts to revitalize intangible cultural heritage through interactive formats, combining traditional customs with modern creative participation.

They added that the initiative aimed to make festival traditions more tangible by transforming elements recorded in historical texts into hands-on cultural experiences, allowing visitors to engage with seasonal customs in a more direct and participatory way.