The Saturday was the Dragon Boat Festival when the dragon boat races take place.
First. A history lesson.
The Dragon Boat Festival is called 端午节 (duān wǔ jié)1 in Chinese. It falls on the fifth day of the fifth month on the lunar calendar, therefore, it changes every year.
Though there are many theories on how this holiday originated, the most popular one is that of patriotic poet Qu Yuan (屈原) and his suicide in 278 BCE during the Warring States Period in China. Qu Yuan was from the State of Chu (one of seven states) who was exiled by the King.
In exile, he wrote many famous poems, including Li Sao, reflecting the love and passion he had for his country. It was when another state, the State of Qin, captured the capital of of Chu that Qu Yuan drown himself in the Miluo River on the fifth day of the fifth month. He was protesting the corruption of that era, refusing to see his country occupied and conquered by the State of Qin.
The people who admired and respected him from the village paddled out in their boats to look for his body in the river. They also threw in rice wrapped in bamboo leaves (粽子 – zòng zi) to feed the fish. This way, the fish would eat the rice instead of Qu Yuan’s body.
Later, the people kept throwing in the 粽子 on the fifth day of the fifth month as a way of paying their respects to the poet. This is where and how the Dragon Boat Festival, sometimes called Poet’s Day (since Qu Yuan was a poet) started.
Hasbro has a team every year and I signed up to join the local tradition. We had 3 teams this year: mens, ladies and mixed. I rowed on the ladies team. We had practice every Friday for past 10 weeks but with work load and travel I was only able to make 3.
We were up super early to catch team bus to Stanley Beach. We left my area at 6:45 AM.
Our team costume this year was My Little Pony so we had pony shirts and then fun tails, hair extensions and wigs.
Here is a team picture with Twilight Sparkle herself int he middle:
The dragon boats are wooden boats where the 18 racers will row.
The front of the boat has none other than a dragon.
The teams each have a tent where we spend the day and can hang out while we are not racing. We were super lucky that our tent was on an upper road that was mostly shaded. It was hot all day long. Here you can see our road with many tents.
Here are pictures of the ladies team and us racing.
The American contingency of lady rowers! Me, Natascha and Sarah with Lisa in the front.
Pony strong!
Here is the mens team boat.
This is a cool team photo using a 360 degree camera.
