Feature: Dragonboats celebrate Chinese tradtional festival in U.S. Southern California

Paddlers compete in a dragon boat race during the Castaic Lake Dragon Boat Festival in Los Angeles County, California, the United States, on June 4, 2022. (Photo by Ceng Hui/Xinhua)

by Julia Pierrepont III

CASTAIC, the United States, June 6 (Xinhua) -- Shimmering white tents lined the waterfront, providing shade and refreshments for the hundreds of dragonboat paddlers and attendees from all over California, who converged on or around the Castaic Lake for a festive competition.

The third annual Los Angeles County Castaic Lake Dragonboat Festival crested the waves this weekend, celebrating the Chinese traditional festival, at a site just a short drive north of Los Angeles downtown.

"It's a great day out," Paul Lin, head of the event's organizing team and a co-founder/steerer for Castaic's own Dragon Eyes team, told Xinhua on Saturday. "It's terrific way to expand cultural dialogue, and great fun for the whole family for people who comes to watch and enjoy."

Dragonboat racing has been going on for millennia in China originally in honor of the Chinese water dragon deity in an effort to call down rain and avert misfortune and catastrophe.

In different parts of China, the festival also honors a Chinese hero poet who sacrificed himself to protest corruption; in other areas, to honor the premier of Wu for warning of a dangerous plot against the king; and a daughter who perished after leaping into the river to try to save her drowning father.

Giggling kids raced gleefully along the hot sand of the lakeside beach, as their parents enjoyed the shady picnic and BBQ areas nestled under the trees along the shore.

It was a perfect Southern California day, replete with sunshine, cool breeze and a lake that stretched as shimmer of blue against rolling brown hills dotted with pine trees.

By far the stars of the show were row upon row of long, sleek brightly-painted wooden boats, with bows proudly displayed golden dragonheads with gaping red jaws, pronged horns and gleaming scales and sterns shaped like decorative dragon tails.

A drummer uses a large traditional wooden drum to keep the paddlers on beat and stroking in unison, while a steersperson in the back keeps them in their lane.

Visitors to the event were regaled by a variety of cultural performances including Chinese-style singers in silk robes, Polynesian dancers in long grass skirts and headgear swaying to Hawaiian hula music, and Jarabe Tapatio-style Mexican dancers snapping and swirling their colorful skirts to Mariachi music.

Raul, a local high school teacher and a member of the Kalakeke Polynesian dance troupe, said their dances come from Hawaii, Tahiti, Samoa and the Maori of New Zealand. He appreciated the diversity of their troupe. "We have people from everywhere here with diverse backgrounds to celebrate the Dragonboat Festival.

Lin, an optometrist in Castaic, said a friend initially got him involved in dragonboat racing over a decade ago, but he picked it up again in 2015. By 2018, they decided to host their own festival.

"All these festivals were hosted on bodies of water and we realized we had a great lake right here in Castaic that would be perfect for an event like this," explained Lin.

In 2018, they started with two boats and 20 teams, were sidelined during the pandemic, then came back with a roar in 2022 with 36 teams and 50 individual races.

Lin and his teammates really feel that dragonboating opens up a friendly dialogue between cultures and communities.

"There's something really special to be learned from our dragonboat motto: 'One Boat, One Beat,' he told Xinhua. "When you paddle with 20 people, you make 20 friends."

Lin pointed out that most people wouldn't have a chance to sit and talk in a car with somebody so different from them, "but when they're in the boat together, that opens up the opportunity for dialogue and real friendship."

"You don't get that kind of closest and camaraderie from golf," he quipped.

"Paddlers come from all walks of life, all races, all ages, genders," seasoned paddler Linda Roselund, an older blonde American woman on the Dragon Eyes team, told Xinhua.

"I do it because I love the outdoors, the camaraderie and, of course, I love winning medals!" Her friend, Irena Kornienko, a Russian immigrant, is also on the team and loves traveling with the team to competitions.

"The traditional dragonboat ceremony goes back thousands of years in China," said Roselund. "It's nice to be part of that tradition."

Also competing Saturday was KP Dragons, a corporate team formed in 2001 by a Kaiser Permanente paddler and a former president of the Kaiser Permanente Asian Association.

KP employees who want to promote physical fitness and a healthy lifestyle, and enhance cultural awareness through a popular water sport, can't wait to hit the water. And paddlers say it doesn't hurt that its outrageously fun!

"It's good exercise and I like it that we're out in nature," KP employee Marianne Sing told Xinhua. "Plus we couldn't compete during COVID so it's really good to get out and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine and see old friends and just have fun."

Organizers are pleased that the sport is starting to take off in California.

"We really want to help expand awareness and exposure to the public and help grow the sport," Lin told Xinhua.

"We're hoping one day it'll become an Olympic sport. It's already been an exhibition sport at the Japan Olympics, so we hope for the future." ■

Paddlers take part in a dragon boat race during the Castaic Lake Dragon Boat Festival in Los Angeles County, California, the United States, on June 4, 2022. (Photo by Ceng Hui/Xinhua)