At midday, 5 hours after touching down, our latest guests Jen
and Ed were both thrilled and shellshocked to be on a boat on the far side of
HK, cocktail in hand, DJ-spun music thumping out behind them and furiously
paddling teams of dragonboaters splashing past in front.
What a great introduction to how crackers things can be
here.
We had a great time at, effectively, a day long party. Our corporate
schmoozy junk boat was one of over 50 moored around all three sides of the
course, access to which was via a swarming fleet of motor boats that ferried a
constant stream of revellers and competitors to and from boat and beach from a
frighteningly unstable plastic pontoonish pier. We were incredibly well-looked
after - decent food and drink on tap; the novelty of a polaroid-wielding
photographer; and a bonus short junk journey to another port on the South Side
of the island.
This day is not that interesting to relate - we drank, ate,
had a great laugh and plenty of time to catch up with Jen and Ed. So, I’ll talk
about the festival itself.
Every year, HK has a public holiday during which there are
Dragon Boat racing festivals. The vast majority of expats will either be racing
or going to watch; but that does not mean that it’s an expat dominated event –
everyone takes part, and it has long-established roots as a Chinese tradition.
The boating is pretty straightforward – long thin boats with
dragon heads, containing 20ish paddlers seated two abreast, race over 500
metres. There are hundreds of teams, from sports clubs, communities or work
places, with a race every 10 minutes or so from 10am-5pm. These teams train
together for 3 months, some with a daily fanaticism and others only once or
twice over the whole time.
I have no idea a) Who won; b) What constitutes winning (are
there categories? Is there an overall champion?); c) How you would even find
this out. This is mainly because the whole affair is comparable to the
Oxford/Cambridge boat race – tens of thousands of people go to watch, but the
majority go for the atmosphere and the party-mood, not the spectacle itself per se aside from the couple of races
where your colleague/partner/friend is racing. As well as the junks, there are
tents and bars galore festooning the beach and sea front, and then thousands
more people on every spare patch of sand on the beach itself.
A grand day out; a sporting venture we want to try next year;
and another nescafe shot [though Jen is not serious enough for my liking]. Nice
one.
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