The Dragon Boat Festival

Last week-end, we enjoyed watching the dragon boat races along the Keelung River in Taipei. The boats are long and narrow, decorated with a dragon head in front and a dragon tail in the back, and are equipped with a big drum.


The teams consist of up to 20 paddler, one steerer, one drummer and one flag-catcher. Four teams are were racing each other, each time over a distance of about 500m.

At the final line, the flag-catcher has to grab a line the flag from a buoy. The first boat to pull their flag wins the race, while any boats which miss their flag are penalized. In this race, the boat in front won - you can see its green flag in the air - very tightly in front of the boat in the back pulling the red flag.

The winning team salutes us,... ah no, the VIPs on the tribune next to us.


A legend explains the origin of the dragon boat festival. Here a short version of what you can read about this in Wikipedia: The famous Chinese poet Qu Yuan lived in the 3rd century B.C. and was a popularly regarded minister. Other corrupt and jealous ministers convinced the king to exile Qu. In his exile, Qu supposedly produced some of the greatest early poetry of Chinese literature. In the year 278 B.C., upon learning of the upcoming devastation of his state from invasion by a neighbouring warring state, Qu is said to have waded into the Miluo River in order to commit ritual suicide as a form of protest against the corruption of the era. The common people, upon learning of his suicide, rushed out on the water in their fishing boats to the middle of the river and tried desperately to save Qu Yuan. They beat drums and splashed the water with their paddles in order to keep the fish and evil spirits from his body. Later on, they scattered rice into the water to prevent him from suffering hunger.