Nothing is quite as colourful, noisy and downright Chinese as a dragon boat race. Roaring spectators, pounding drums, churning white water and exploding firecrackers make enough noise to deafen the gods. Chinese often use the word renao to describe dragon boat races. Renao literally means “hot and noisy” and has a very positive meaning (translate as lively/bustling). Over the past two decades dragon boat fever has spread far and wide so that now everyone from English grocers to Midwestern soccer moms can be found donning coloured headbands and chopping madly at the water.

Legend has it that the custom of dragon boat racing began over 2300 years ago with the drowning suicide of poet Qu Yuan. When fishermen failed to save him, they beat the water with their paddles and threw rice dumplings into the river to keep the fish from eating his body. However, the history of dragon boat racing as we know it today is surprisingly short. The International Dragon Boat Federation was only established in 1991. Even in the birthplace of modern dragon boating, Hong Kong, the local Dragon Boat Association only dates back to 1976. Perhaps dragon boat racing is not so ancient after all. Maybe the myth of the drowning poet is simply a fig leaf covering a very recent fiction. Social scientists enjoy nothing more than sneaking up on such sacred cows and tipping them over. As it happens, Chinese dragon boat racing traditions are not as recent or as one-dimensional as they might appear at first glance.

For one thing dragon boat racing traditions vary greatly from region to region. In the fishing villages in and around Hong Kong, for instance, the dragon boat festival is bound up with the worship of Tin Hau, the sea goddess. Fishermen place her statue on the dragon boat to pay their respects and pray for good catches and calm seas throughout the coming year. In Xianyou County, Fujian Province, locals race boats two months earlier, on the 30th of March, to commemorate the deaths of Song Dynasty loyalists who refused to surrender to the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty. Xianyou oarsmen keep time by singing the verse:

Strike the drum!
Strike the drum!
Sing of spring!
Sing of spring!
Mourn loyal souls!
Though spring light fades
It will return!
The loyal soul roams
One thousand years!

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Dragon boat customs also appear among China’s ethnic minorities. Some groups of the Miao nationality race dragon boats between May 14th and 26th of the lunar calendar. They believe the festival commemorates a Miao elder who died fighting a poisonous river dragon. While it is possible that the dragon in the Miao story symbolizes the treacherous river, it is also likely the dragon symbolizes the figure of the Chinese emperor, who was greatly feared in the region. If dragon boat racing was a recent invention one would not expect to find so much local variation.

Dragon boat racing is much more than just a sport played between rival villages or families. It is an event filled with religious and historical significance. In fishing communities around Hong Kong dragon boats are ritually awakened before the race and put to the sleep afterwards. New boats are given life by a Taoist priest who blesses the boat using a magic sword, holy water and sand. Across the Pearl River delta celebrations continue long after the racing has finished, as villagers gather to eat a Dragon Boat Feast. Popular dishes at the feast include duck with chestnuts, tofu and fish and fuzzy melon with pork, which are prepared in a giant wok (daguofan)- eating from the same pot is an important sign of unity in these communities. Wealthy families compete with one another to see who can put on the noisiest firework show. The winning households have the honour of keeping the ornamental dragon head, tail and drum through the next year. Children from nearby towns also converge on fishing villages bearing small gifts which they exchange for a bowl of dragon rice, which is thought to help them grow up big and strong. As veteran oarsman Ah Fat told reporter Jessica Jardine, it’s not just a sport, it’s a culture.

Other proof of dragon boat’s deep cultural foundations is found in the Phoenix Boat tradition. In Chinese culture the world is divided into opposing feminine (negative) and masculine (positive) realms, known as Yin and Yang. In Yin/Yang beliefs dragons symbolize Yang or masculine energy. Prior to the 1980s women were strictly forbidden from touching or even walking in front of a dragon boat. Instead women traveled in smaller boats adorned with the head, tail and wings of a phoenix, the equivalent symbol of yin feminity. Carrying women and children as well as a spirit pavilion, the phoenix boat was pulled through the water by two guardian vessels as a flotilla of colourful boats floated alongside. As the taboo on women’s dragon boat racing has eased so the phoenix boat tradition has disappeared. Nevertheless, even today some of the large fifty man teams do not permit women aboard because they believe their yin will distort the yang energy of the boat. The fact that such politically incorrect ideas survive within dragon boat racing traditions is further evidence of their antiquity.

References

[1] Dragon Boat Tales
[2] 各地划龙舟纪念人不同
[3] 龙舟饭
[4] 广东番禺“凤船”闹端午