Its that dragon boat fest again

Here is the wonderful thing about festivals- ppl get together, they do sthg when only a big bunch of ppl can. What is even cooler is that hong kong being a complex society with confined unique culture, can nurture and develop an ancient festival that is traditionally national memorial day for qu yuan the noble man, into this vibrant international competition event where participants come from all over the world. I mean, qu yuan might be 'a little bit' too grumpy when he decided to jump off that cliff two thousand years ago, but i guess he should be happy to know, that his descendants are having such a great time mourning and celebrating his integrity still, and that no modern noble men are 'noble' enough to take that dive even though they are told to do so every now and then... so qu yuan 1, white house 0

No, i m not trying to be corny, this is serious, or rather, they are serious- apparently there are three dragon boat federations, the international(IDBF), the european(EDBF) and the asian(ADBF), recognising dragon boat racing as a regular sport event to be included in the olympic games eventually. All the above federations organise dragon boat racing championships for representative national teams, IDBF being the most well known. In 2006 it held the first world championship for breast cancer survivors in singapore- the 'pink paddlers', and there will be the second in july 2009 in miami, with conjunction with the world corcom championships. Many events have participants by the thousands, generating over millions of dollars for the local economy. I know its not about the money, but i got a feeling that stanley, where the hong kong dragon boat event is held, should make good use of the income cos there is still a great deal to improve on- stopping the beach from retreating is a starter. Anyways, check this out:

This is what they called vallam kali, snake boat as we call it, literally meaning boat game in malayalam, founded in kerala, south india. Look at the sheer size of it, probably takes a hundred men to paddle this thing, let alone to race it. In terms of size and manpower wise, i d say snakes 1, dragons 0. I love exotic design.