Tag Archives: Dragon Boat Festival

Dragon Boat Racing

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Happy Chinese Dragon Boat Festival! 龙舟节快乐！

The Dragon Boat Festival, or Duanwu Festival (端午节 Duānwǔ jié), is a traditional Chinese festival with a history of over 2000 years. It occurs on the 5th day of the 5th month in Chinese lunar calendar, which falls on Friday 3rd June this year.

Duanwu Festival is widely known as Dragon Boat Festival (龙舟节 Lóngzhōu jié) to the rest of the world, as one of its celebrative events – dragon boat racing – has become so popular (受欢迎 shòu huānyíng) in the world.

Today, we would like to invite Dr YAO Xudan (姚旭丹) to introduce dragon boat racing and share with us her interesting experiences of joining in races when she was in Belfast and more recently in Manchester.

Image@LiangWANG

YAO Xudan (姚旭丹) studied her PhD in Queen’s University Belfast from 2014 to 2018. Afterwards, she joined the National Graphene Institute, University of Manchester, as a postdoctoral research associate. Currently, she is continuing her research in Queen Mary College, University of London.

Dragon Boat Racing in Belfast

When I was doing my PhD at Queen’s, I joined dragon boat racing as a paddler twice in 2015 and 2016, as a member of Team QUB, which were organised by Chinese Welfare Association NI. People from different professional backgrounds, including universities, associations, boat clubs, etc., signed up for the events with full enthusiasm. Chinese food was prepared and supplied to all participants. Although we did not win in the end, everyone enjoyed the teamwork spirit (团队精神 tuánduì jīngshén) during racing, despite the bad weather. My colleagues from Spain and India were so excited that they wanted very much to follow up celebrations as such in the future. I believe that our traditional culture (传统文化 chuántǒng wénhuà) could be shared and accepted widely in this engaging way.

  • Dragon Boat Race 2015 | Image@LiangWang
  • Dragon Boat Race 2015 | Image@LiangWang
  • Dragon Boat Race 2015 | Image@LiangWang
  • Dragon Boat Race 2015 | Image@LiangWang
  • Dragon Boat Race 2015 | Image@LiangWang
  • Dragon Boat Race 2015 | Image@LiangWang
  • Dragon Boat Race 2015 | Image@LiangWang
  • Dragon Boat Race 2015 | Image@LiangWang

Dragon Boat Racing in Manchester

On 29th May 2022, the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival was held in Manchester, with 36 teams from universities, companies and institutions participating in the competition. With my previous experience of Belfast races I joined one of the University of Manchester teams, which was formed by all girls. The morning was a bit wet but fortunately it became sunny during the race. Again, although we could not enter into the final competition (决赛 juésài), we were satisfied with our great team performance and enjoyed ourselves. Apart from the racing, the festival also included Chinese kung fu performance (功夫表演 gōngfu biǎoyǎn), singing (唱歌 chànggē), dancing (跳舞 tiàowǔ) and tasting (品尝 pǐncháng) traditional Chinese food such as zongzi (粽子 zòngzi), baozi (包子 bāozi), marinated eggs (卤蛋 lǔdàn), making it an exciting and fun experience.

  • Dragon Boat Race in Manchester | Image@XudanYao
  • Dragon Boat Race in Manchester | Image@XudanYao
  • Dragon Boat Race in Manchester | Image@XudanYao
  • Dragon Boat Race in Manchester | Image@XudanYao
  • Dragon Boat Race in Manchester | Image@XudanYao

Overall, dragon boat racing is really one of the wonderful occasions for people to get together and celebrate our traditional festival, as well as to enhance intercultural communication and understanding between people of different communities.

About dragon boat racing

Dragon boats are human-powered watercrafts originally made of wood, and in modern times upgraded into carbon or glass fibre composites, as well as other lightweight materials. They are universally decorated with a Chinese dragon head and tail. For racing, a standard dragon boat typically consists of 20 paddlers, one drummer facing toward the paddlers, and one steerer. However, there are also small boats with a capacity of 10 paddlers.

Image@XudanYao

Author: YAO Xudan
Editors: Martin Duffy and WANG Liang

Have you joined any boat racing events before? You are very welcome to share your experience by using the comment box below.

More to read

Here are posts about our past celebrations of Dragon Boat Festival, if you are interested in getting to know more about our celebrations at Queen’s.

QUB boat racing event

After a 3 year absence the 16th annual Queen’s University Belfast Boat Race will take place next month, with Queen’s men and women rowers taking on Trinity College Dublin on Saturday 11 June 2022. As well as the main event there will also be junior races involving local schools racing over the 2km course.

For more information click QUB Event page.

Duanwu Festival

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The Duanwu (Dragon Boat) Festival falls on June 14 this year.

Duanwu Festival, 端午节 (Duānwǔ jié) in Chinese, is also widely known as Dragon Boat Festival 龙舟节 (Lóngzhōu jié) in the rest of the world, as one of its celebrative events – dragon boat race – has become so popular in the world. However, like last year due to pandemic lockdown in the UK, we are still unable to watch dragon boat races or to have cultural workshops on campus.

The head of a dragon boat in River Lagan. Image@LiangWANG

If you would like to review how we celebrated it in the past, here are some snapshots with links to full albums (via the Language Centre Facebook).

2020 Culture Talk

2019 Interactive Culture Display

  • Making paper dragon boat and zongzi.
  • Display with paper zongzi.
  • Calligraphy presentation of baby Anna’s name (安娜). Calligrapher Chengbin LIU (left) and visiting academic/presenter Wenting LI (right)
  • Making paper dragon – follow me.
  • Observation and hands-on practice.
  • Happy hands-on practice.

2018 Culture Talk and Workshop

  • Warming up with Guzheng performance
  • Delivering the culture talk
  • Lagan Dragon members’ hands-on practice
  • Watching the demo
  • Success, success!
  • Forget-me-not photo

This time, while we cannot get together again, we have invited some staff and students to show and tell what they have done to celebrate the festival – making and eating zongzi 粽子(zòngzi), a typical type of food made of glutinous rice with sweet (e.g. dates, red bean paste) or savoury (e.g. pork, salted egg yolk) fillings wrapped up by bamboo or reed leaves, as the photos shown below.

  • Zongzi making – reed or bamboo leaves. Image@SharonFAN
  • Zongzi making – materials preparation. Image@YuZHAO
  • Zongzi making – wrapping up. Image@XinzhuPANG
  • Zongzi – wrapped and to be boiled. Image@LiangWANG
  • Zongzi – boiled in a rice cooker. Image@ChenZHANG
  • Zongzi – boiled and served in a plate. Image@XinzhuPANG
  • Zongzi – one unwrapped and ready to eat. Image@YuZHAO
  • Zongzi – wrapped up with dates as stuffing. Image@MengTAN
  • Zongzi – unwrapped and served with a plate. Image@XinzhuPANG
  • Zongzi – unwrapped and served with a bowl. Image@ChenZHANG
  • Zongzi – unwrapped and served in a bowl. Image@MengTAN
  • Zongzi – sweet taste with sugar. Image@SharonFAN
  • Zongzi – savoury taste with pork. Image@SharonFAN
  • Zongzi – savoury taste with pork and salted egg yolk, unwrapped and halved. Image@XinzhuPANG
  • Zongzi – served in a plate with decoration. Image@SharonFAN
  • Zongzi – wrapped up and boiled. Image@YuZHAO
  • Zongzi – ornament. Image@SharonFAN
  • Mung bean cake – additional food. Image@YuZHAO

Vocabulary

  • 粽(子) zòng(zi) – zongzi
  • 糯米 nuò mǐ – glutinous rice; 糯 nuò – sticky and soft; 米 mǐ – rice
  • 粽叶 zòng yè – reed or bamboo leaves; 叶 yè – leaf
  • 竹 zhú – bamboo; 苇 wěi – reed
  • 枣 zǎo – date (fruit)
  • 豆沙 dòushā – red bean paste
  • 咸蛋黄 xián dànhuáng – salted egg yolk
  • 猪肉 zhūròu – pork
  • 绿豆糕 lǜdòu gāo – mung bean cake
  • 装饰 zhuāngshì – ornament, decoration

Greetings

In addition to the common festival greeting that you may say 快乐 kuàilè (happy), many Chinese people also choose to say 安康 ānkāng (peaceful and healthy) or 吉祥 jíxiáng (auspicious). This is because Duanwu Festival is considered having its origin from warding off diseases and illness mostly caused by the rising summer heat and humidity which invited the invasion of poisonous animals such as insects and reptiles. Therefore, you will be able to see people use a varied way of expressions:

  • 端午节快乐！Duānwǔ jié kuàilè! – Happy Duanwu Festival!
  • 端午节安康！Duānwǔ jié ānkāng! – Wish you a peaceful and healthy Duanwu Festival!
  • 端午节吉祥！Duānwǔ jié jíxiáng! – Wish you an auspicious Duanwu Festival!

However, outside overseas Chinese communities, if dragon boat races are the only form of celebrations, i.e. beyond the context of traditional Chinese Duanwu culture, then people would find it normal to just express a happy festive greeting.

  • 龙舟节快乐！Lóngzhōujié kuàilè! – Happy Dragon Boat Festival!

More to explore –

A video of QUB students tasting zongzi and other snacks. Video source: QUB Management School Weibo

Have you done something memorable this Dragon Boat Festival? Tell us and share your stories in the comment box below.

Dragon Boat Festival

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This year the iconic Dragon Boat Festival (端午节 Duānwǔjié) falls on Thursday 25th June. Although it won’t be the same as before that we could get together to celebrate, we welcome you to join the Chinese Culture Forum via MS Teams.

Date: Wednesday 24th June
Time: 4 – 5 pm
Access: MS Teams > QUB Chinese LIG

All Queen’s students and staff are welcome!

Celebrating Dragon Boat Festival online; Follow-up materials access