In ancient times, when a family got together for a reunion on the Dragon Boat Festival, served on the table were Five Yellows: soy bean sprouts, yellow croakers, rice field eels, cucumbers and realgar wine, which were thought to eradicate diseases and improve health.

In some regions, realgar wine were even sprayed inside and outside of the house, or used to paint “王” (the king) on the foreheads of the children or applied around their nose or ear orifice. At the same time, hanging calamus and wearing Ay Tsao will also have the same effect. Calamus has its own special odor and taste, whicj can detoxify and kill insects, and Ay Tsao can help open the nine orifices of man and cure diseases.

Besides calamus and Ay Tsao, bulbs of garlic, pomegranate flowers and Chinese Ixora are also used for health care on the Dragon Boat Festival. They are known as “the five plants of bliss in the world”. Women wear pomegranate flowers and Ay Tsao on their heads as ornaments to ward off evil things. Bulbs of garlic are attached to calamus and hung outdoors as a means to repel epidemics. All of the five plants are blossom at this time of the festival. Some pther plants are also burned to fumigate the room. “Oay respects to Qu Yuan and dispel the evils on the Dragon Boat Festival, as smoke is curling upwards over thousands of homes”.