BEIJING, June 19 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese legislator has called for the traditional Dragon Boat Festival to be given national holiday status in order to help preserve China's cultural heritage and promote patriotism.

"Many traditional festivals, such as Tomb-Sweeping Day, Mid-Autumn Festival and Dragon Boat Festival, are excluded from the legal holidays on the mainland, which undermines the spread of Chinese culture," said Zhu Weifang, a deputy on the National People's Congress.

"The Dragon Boat Festival should be a good opportunity to educate the young about traditional values of patriotism, as the festival has been celebrated for thousands of years to commemorate Qu Yuan, a great Chinese patriotic poet during the Warring States period," said Zhu, also vice director of the Standing Committee of the Anhui Provincial People's Congress.

Qu Yuan lived in the state of Chu during the Warring States period (475 B.C. to 221 B.C.). He drowned himself in the Miluo River in today's Hunan Province in 278 B.C., on fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, hoping his death would alert the king to revitalize the kingdom.

The tradition arose that on the day of his death dragon boat races would be held and people should eat "zongzi", glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves.

But with the day excluded from legal holidays, young people failed to appreciate the festival's significance, said Zhu.

"Chinese traditional festivals are fully of humanitarian spirit and affection and family reunions are regarded as a way to pass down Chinese culture," said Zhu.

She was confident that traditional festivals, such as the Dragon Boat Festival, would be included as legal national holidays on the mainland "in near future", as the government was doing more to preserve cultural heritage.

The Dragon Boat Festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, making it June 19 this year.

Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan already include the Dragon Boat Festival as a legal holiday.