For more than two thousand years, on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, the Chinese have celebrated Duan Wu Jie—or the Dragon-Boat Festival, as it’s known in the West—to honor the patriotism of a man named Qu Yuan. Qu was a poet and a minister, born into the Chu court, during the Zhou dynasty, when China was divided into seven warring kingdoms. As Qin, a neighboring state, gained in influence, Qu advised reforming the court and making a strategic alliance with Qin. But other ministers, fearing a loss of power and prestige, moved against him, and the king banished him from the state. He spent his years in exile writing poems, mostly on the subjects of virtue and loyalty, that are still regarded as some of the greatest verse ever written in the Chinese language. After a decade, in 278 B.C., upon learning that Chu had fallen to Qin, Qu drowned himself in the Miluo River, in Hunan Province. The dragon-boat races held during the annual festival represent attempts to save him, and children and adults alike still throw rice balls wrapped in bamboo leaves into rivers—a traditional offering meant to keep the fish from disturbing Qu’s remains.