Dacheng suo, the dragon carried on dry land
From the first to the sixth of the fifth month at Dacheng suo in Huanggang, Raoping, Chaozhou, a paper dragon boat is carried through the streets. There is no river inside this Ming coastal garrison town, so the boat takes to the street: one dragon a day, six colours in turn.
1. No river in the town, so the dragon comes ashore
Dacheng suo is a Ming coastal defence battalion town; the wall still stands, and there is no waterway inside. The Dragon Boat festival calls for a race, and with no water the boat is carried onto land — bamboo splints for the frame, coloured paper pasted for scales, about seven metres long, carried through the streets by young men, with gongs and drums and a demonstration of anti-pirate battle formations.
This is not a later adaptation but the old practice. The Ming Dongli zhi records: “(on the fifth of the fifth month) the water towns race, and Dacheng suo ties coloured silks into a dragon boat, or pastes it in coloured paper, each dressing a tale.” The water towns race on the water, Dacheng suo “ties coloured silks into a dragon boat” in the street — the two sentences stand on the same line.
The days are the first to the sixth of the fifth month, one dragon a day, six colours in turn, not all done on the fifth. The Chaoshan saying “Zhang Guolao lived to a hundred and eight thousand and nine, and never saw a dragon boat walk the street” refers to this.
Each of the six dragons belongs to a temple inside the town — the City God temple, the Guanshengdi temple, the Wuxianye temple, the Tianhou palace, the Hesong shrine and others — and each temple brings out its own. The horns and tails differ too: the pink dragon of the first day has a single horn, the red dragon of the fifth a double tail, both handed down from the older generation. The order in past years has been pink on the first, brown on the second, green on the third, purple on the fourth, red on the fifth, yellow on the sixth. The fifth, the day of the festival itself, is the liveliest, and the dragon is made larger than on the other days.
| Year | Lunar | Gregorian |
|---|---|---|
| 2027 | 1st–6th of the 5th month | from 5 June 2027, Saturday, to 10 June 2027, Thursday |
| 2028 | 1st–6th of the 5th month | from 24 May 2028, Wednesday, to 29 May 2028, Monday |
| 2029 | 1st–6th of the 5th month | from 12 June 2029, Tuesday, to 17 June 2029, Sunday |
| 2030 | 1st–6th of the 5th month | from 1 June 2030, Saturday, to 6 June 2030, Thursday |
| 2031 | 1st–6th of the 5th month | from 20 June 2031, Friday, to 25 June 2031, Wednesday |
The Gregorian column is a calendar conversion, not a promise that the year will be kept so. Which street on which day, and which gate the dragon leaves by, are settled by the village each year and are not laid out here.
2. Who keeps it
The village of Dacheng suo keeps it itself, and has handed it down for over six hundred years. The garrison was a battalion town set up in the Ming against Japanese pirates; the street pattern inside survives, and it is these old streets the dry dragon walks.
The lists: provincial. The sixth batch of Guangdong’s provincial intangible heritage list, extension items, folk custom, item code X-15, item name “the Dragon Boat festival (the Qi’ao dragon boat blessing tour, the Gulao sanjia tenglong, the Dacheng suo dry dragon, the dragon-eye dotting custom)”, with Raoping county of Chaozhou among the nominating areas, approved and proclaimed by the provincial government on 10 November 2015. In the provincial list it sits under “the Dragon Boat festival” and is not a main item in its own right — search the list by X-15 or by “Dragon Boat festival”, not by “dry dragon”.
3. Where to stand
As past accounts describe it
The dry dragon is carried, so it moves slower than a boat on water, but the streets are narrow and the dragon’s head fills one when it turns. Gongs, drums and the formation demonstration follow behind, and the file stops and starts.
An editorial note
Houses line both sides of the old street and the thresholds are low; do not stand in someone’s doorway and block it. When the dragon turns, step back to the wall and do not photograph from the middle of the street. These two are this site’s reminders, not the rules of the organisers or the police.
Getting there: the nearest high-speed station is Raoping; Huanggang is the town Dacheng suo belongs to, and there is still a drive from the station to the garrison. May is hot, and one of the six days is enough — there is no need to keep watch every day.
4. Sources
| Source | Body | Date | What it establishes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notice of the Guangdong provincial government approving and proclaiming the sixth provincial intangible heritage list | Guangdong provincial government (gazette no. 33 of 2015) | Nov 2015 | item 28 of the folk-custom category, code X-15 “Dragon Boat festival”, which includes “the Dacheng suo dry dragon”, with Raoping county of Chaozhou among the nominating areas |
| Heritage information (the “Dacheng suo dry dragon” item) | Raoping county culture, broadcasting, television, news and publication bureau | 4 December 2015 | approved and proclaimed on 10 November 2015 as a sixth-batch provincial extension item |
| The provincial item “Dacheng suo dry dragon” opens the sixth folk culture festival | Chaozhou municipal government portal | June 2026 | six colours over six days (pink, brown, green, purple, red, yellow); over six hundred years; entered the provincial list in November 2015 |
| The garrison’s dry dragon at the Dragon Boat festival: a boat on land, praying for good fortune | Yangcheng Evening News | 21 June 2023 | the six colours in order over six days; the quotation from the Ming Dongli zhi; the dressing as Ming garrison troops; entry to the provincial list in 2015 |
| Guangdong heritage: “gongs and drums together, opera all day” — the Dacheng suo dry dragon | Nanfang Plus | 7 June 2021 | the six dragons belong to six temples in the town, each bringing out its own; the fifth of the fifth has a separate procedure |
| The “boat on land” goes on past the festival: Chaozhou’s 600-year custom returns | Raoping county cultural centre | June 2026 | the pink dragon of the first day with a single horn, the red dragon of the fifth with a double tail; the dragon about seven metres and two months in the making; Lin Zhuzhou, municipal inheritor of the craft |
| What is unique about the Chaoshan dragon boat | Tencent (local contributor) | 18 June 2026 | the form of the dry dragon, seven metres long, one colour a day from the first to the sixth, the anti-pirate formations, the saying |
| Chaoshan boat racing, a long history | Chaoshan folklore net (Yangcheng Evening News, Yue Dong weekend) | — | the rules of Chaoshan boat racing and the “snatching the head flag”; background for comparison |
This entry was added in November 2026; the page had previously stopped at the second month. Each row above establishes only what its own column states.
5. What comes next
On water in the same month are the village dragon boat races on the fifth of the fifth — at Guiyu in Chaoyang they race for the flag on the Lian river, at Shanghua in Chenghai they use the flat-headed “headless mortar” boat. For the session before, see carrying Mazu on the twenty-third of the third month.
Back to the Chaoshan procession calendar for all the sessions.
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Last revised: 4 November 2026