By Dan Trudeau
Chinese drumbeats flared and bright red ribbons twirled in an HSBC bank conference room in Manhattan Monday as organizers said this year’s annual Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival will have more than 100 boats manned by 20 crew members each in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
The festival is scheduled to take place Aug. 9-10.
The festival, founded in 1991, has grown considerably over the years as more and more teams have been drawn to row in decorative, one-ton boats across Meadow Lake. A wide variety of food and cultural exhibitions are also part of what organizers call the largest multi-cultural event in New York.
The competitive centerpiece of the festival, the U.S. Open competition, will award a $10,000 prize to the best of the dozens of teams from the United States and Canada to vie for the top spot.
“Over the last 13 years this event has become a major event, not only for the Flushing-Queens area but for the entire country,” said City Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing), one of several speakers at Monday’s event.
“It’s such a great time to be had and this is a time, particularly in New York, when we need to have these fun-filled events,” he added.
Festival Chairman Henry Wan said this year’s event will be the biggest and best yet, offering more races, more cultural exhibitions, time trials the weekend before the festival and a special MTA shuttle bus from Shea Stadium directly to the races to help alleviate traffic congestion.
Among those features most highly touted are special racing divisions for teams representing corporations and media, $20,000 in plane ticket giveaways — courtesy of Delta Airlines, a martial arts exhibition by students of the famous Shaolin School of Kung Fu and a performance by the Chinese Folkdance Company, which will open the festivities Aug. 9.
In addition, the festival will feature music and dancing from groups unrelated to Hong Kong or Chinese culture, including the Ballet Folklorico Mexicano and the American rock group Quasilulu.
The roots of dragon boat racing can be traced back more than 2,000 years to the ancient Chinese state of Chu. According to Chinese legends, the radical reformist poet Qu Yuan was banished from Chu for angering the king.
Qu Yuan wandered the countryside in exile, composing poems for his lost home. Upon learning that Chu had been invaded, he threw himself into a river and drowned.
Unable to rescue the disconsolate poet, local fishermen beat the water with their oars to scare away fish that would eat his body. Dragon boat races have been a commemoration of Qu Yuan’s death for fishermen around Hong Kong for hundreds of years.
Today, the sport is popular across North America as well as in Hong Kong, and races have sprung up in Atlanta, Boston, Vancouver and Toronto in recent years.
Sarah Wu, of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, one of the festival’s top sponsors, said the New York festival, North America’s largest, has established itself as being unique while creating a strong bond with the city of Hong Kong, particularly in times of mutual adversity, economic and otherwise.
“Having a dragon boat festival in New York, it is not a surprise it is taking off and setting its own dynamic,” Wu said. “In New York we have gone through a lot and in Hong Kong we have also had difficulties, but we must always look ahead. Hong Kong, like New York, will always come out ahead.”
Reach Reporter Dan Trudeau by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com, or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 173.
