The fifth day of the fifth lunar month is a traditional folk festival in China, but in Cixi, it is generally called "Winter Red Festival" instead of Dragon Boat Festival.

Folk sayings about the Winter Red Festival: First of all, safflower cakes in winter and solstice noodles in summer are eaten like Ge Jiejian. Second, in winter, the red bayberry is hanging in the basket, and in summer, the red bayberry is full of mountains and mountains. Third, La-Toad avoids winter red. Fourth, eat red jiaozi in winter and freeze it for three times.

On the day of the Winter Red Festival, Cixi has many folk customs, which are still popular today, and some have many scientific basis. Every family should wrap glutinous rice palms and make flower cakes. Now, for convenience, everyone goes to the market to buy food on this day. Therefore, there are a lot of zongzi and flower cakes in the street on the day of the Winter Red Festival, which leads to the saying that "the winter red cake is like the summer solstice, and it tastes like Niu Ge's appetite". Hang Zhen 'ai and Acorus calamus on the door (Ai Qing Mai Ai Guo Qing Jiao is wild Ai, not tall), and hang sachets on the child's chest and mosquito net, which store realgar and spices to ward off evil spirits. (Learn from the old method taught by Xu Xian in The Legend of the White Snake to make the White Snake drink realgar wine to perform the snake demon), and eat zongzi and flower cakes instead of breakfast in the morning. Burn Acorus calamus, Folium Artemisiae Argyi and Radix Ophiopogonis in the house at noon to kill all mosquitoes in the house. According to the old man, Ophiopogon japonicus and Artemisia argyi are both Chinese herbal medicines. Mosquito's feet will fall off after burning thick smoke. My mother used to smoke like this every year. It was delicious. Everyone also eats realgar wine and glutinous rice flour to make golden balls to disinfect and sterilize, strengthen the body and kill mosquitoes and flies. On this day, brave people even catch a dozen tadpoles (born of toads) from the pool river and eat them alive. When I was a child, I saw the old lady next door swallow tadpoles raw every year. There are still 365 days in a year, and only this day people eat toad meat, saying that it can remove all poisons and there will be no scars in summer. Therefore, it is difficult to find toads on this day. This is how the folk saying "La Toad avoids winter red" comes from. As long as you avoid the winter red, the toad will be fine. Many old people have to find a toad. Even if they don't kill it to eat, at least put it on the kitchen stove and let it crawl back and forth a few times. Adults say that after the toad climbs the stove in winter, the stove is clean, and snails and ants will not come to the stove again all year round.

Before the coming of the Winter Red Festival, there was a popular and unchanging custom in Cixi, that is, the hairy-footed son-in-law had to give a big gift to her husband's family before the coming of the Winter Red Festival, and there were as many gift items as the Chinese New Year. If her husband's parents are still alive, this gift will be added and given to her husband's wife. As important as this festival is the Double Ninth Festival. After two years of marriage, whether to send a gift or not is all agreed with the son-in-law, and whether to send it or not is ok. But now that people are well-off, they are still giving it away.