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Hopes are running high on the mainland for the UN to list the Dragon Boat Festival as intangible cultural heritage, to feed off what many perceive to be foreign encroachment in this domain. 
Xinhua reported yesterday that Hubei  had applied to the UN scientific and cultural organisation Unesco on behalf of the whole country for the Dragon Boat Festival to be nominated as intangible cultural heritage.
The news agency quoted Jiang Qing, director of the Hubei provincial centre for protection of intangible cultural heritage. The bid comes after South Korea successfully secured a UN listing five years ago for the Gangneung Danoje Festival,  which falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Lunar calendar, the same day as the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival.
The listing for the Korean festival -  widely considered to be a spin-off of the Chinese Duanwuje (Tuen Ng) festival -  has triggered a heated debate on the mainland over the status of Chinese cultural heritage.
Many also consider the listing of the Korean festival to be 'theft'.
A war of words erupted on the internet between people from both countries in 2007 after reports that South Korea would wrap up preparatory work by the end of 2008 for a Unesco listing for fung shui.  
China's Dragon Boat Festival dates back  2,300 years and commemorates patriotic poet and exiled minister Qu Yuan  with rituals such as the making of rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves, and dragon boat racing.
Li Bochun, director of the Chinese Cultural Renaissance Research Institute, said it was a misconception to consider that South Korea had 'stolen'  China's Dragon Boat Festival through the UN listing for its own festival, because such heritage was universally owned.



Dragon boats list towards the UN