Dragon Boat – Past and Present
It’s important to understand and honor the history of dragon boat racing, and dragon boat festivals, especially as we have the opportunity to share this incredible experience with new paddlers. The following summaries come from the International Dragon Boat Federation, who have been instrumental in the modern expansion of dragon boat racing:
The Legend of Qu Yuan
The Tuen Ng (Dragon Boat Festival) commemorates a well-respected historical figure, Qu Yuan (pronounced Chu Ywan), and his story that took place over 2000 years ago in ancient China.
At the time, with the corruption within the government of the Kingdom of Chu, Qu Yuan was falsely accused of treason by his political rivals. As a result, he was banished from the country. In despair and, perhaps as a final act of protest against the government, he threw himself into the Mi Lo River and drowned.
The Chinese people have never forgotten this desperate heroic act and when fishermen raced their boats to recover his body before it could be devoured by fish (beating drums and throwing rice dumplings into the river to distract them); they founded a tradition that continues to this day.
Each year, on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month (usually June), crews of paddlers re-enact that frantic rush to save Qu Yuan, by propelling long narrow boats with the dragon heads through the water, to the rhythmic beating of drums. It is not known how the dragon boat race came into being, but it is thought that over the years, they were added to ward off evil water spirits. This probably arose because the combination of the 5th lunar numbers is thought to be a bad omen and dragon boat races held, at this time, would ward off evil spirits; protect the health of the people and ensure a good crop each year.
Special foods are also eaten at this time of year, especially in Hong Kong, including replicas of the Rice Dumplings that the fishermen threw into the Milo River, all those years ago in a desperate attempt to save QuYuan.
Dragon Boating today – A Modern Sport and Recreation
In the 1970s, the Hong Kong Tourist Association (now known as the Tourist Board) decided to stage an International Dragon Boat Festival to promote Hong Kong. In 1976, the first Hong Kong International Races took place, an event recognized today as the start of the ‘Modern Era’ of Dragon Boat as a sport. The HKIR developed into an annual festival of enormous success and impressive press pictures of the Hong Kong Races went around the world.
Until the International Dragon Boat Federation (IDBF) was formed in 1991, the HKIR was the ‘unofficial club crew world championships’ of the sport. Crews who competed in the HKIR then went home and started their own Dragon Boat Associations, then the EDBF (European), the IDBF and the ADBF (Asian) Federations’. Three Federations who now govern Dragon Boating as practiced in over 60 countries.
Since the formation of the IDBF, the sport has spread rapidly throughout the world. Today, 30 years after the first HKIR the numbers show the truly impressive development of modern Dragon Boat Sport.
With nearly 50 million participants in China…
Over 300,000 in the UK and Europe, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Russia…
90,000 in Canada and the USA…
Many thousands in Australia and New Zealand and with the sport now spreading through the Caribbean, Africa, and the Pacific Basin…
Dragon Boat Sport, under its governing bodies, is a vibrant, effective and independent paddle sport.
