Enter the Dragons

We [Joe, Pam, Laura, Patrice, Jessica, and myself], along with pretty much everyone else in the city, had this past Tuesday off because it was the day of the Dragon Boat races, which is a tradition that has become an annual event for the people of Hong Kong and any tourists who happen to be in town for this time of year.

The races themselves consist of teams of 8 people on each boat, which are kind of like crew boats in the United States and United Kingdom, with one person pounding on a drum to set the rhythm for the rowers and another person steering. Each team has a unique name, theme, look, and usually a uniform or costume. Investment banks, corporations, and even the local U.S. consulate had teams participating in the race. We saw one team that were all dressed up in Superman costumes (see photo below).

The teams load up into their boats on the beach, then row out to the starting point which is probably about 1/3 to 1/2 a mile out in the water. After the starting gun goes off, it's a straight up race to see who can reach the finish line near the shore the fastest. There are between 8 and 10 boats in each race, and the top two or three in each get invited to compete in the next round. Some photos of the races I took from land and the pier:













The beach itself was packed, with teams resting before and after their races as well as tourists checking out the scene. Lucky for us, the USC alumni association had invited us on to the boat they had chartered for the day to cheer on the USC alumni team and watch the races. We had to go to a pier and wait in line for 30-45 minutes while ferries came by to pick up passengers who needed to be taken to the different ships that were anchored out in the water to watch the races.

The boats were anchored in the waters far away from the shore, lined up in a formation that surrounded the starting point of the races in a way that was somewhat reminiscent of the drag race in the movie "Rebel Without a Cause." The boats are usually chartered for the day by corporations or private groups (as in our case, by the local USC alumni association), who are typically participants in the races in some capacity or other. A few boats looked and sounded like they were party central in Cabo San Lucas or Cancun. The main event that I saw was a pirate galley-style boat anchored about 100 or so yards away from our boat, who were having an insane party on the deck.

We spent the rest of the day watching the races and eating lunch and drinking on the boat. Most of the people there were local USC alumni, although we were also introduced to a group of undergraduate business students who were working in Hong Kong for the summer like us, along with another undergraduate who was on vacation traveling throughout China with his dad.













Towards the end of the day, I wound up hitching a ride back to Causeway Bay on the boat, which took about 2 hours to get there, but it was smooth sailing the entire trip. We saw a junk boat along the way and got some amazing views of Central Hong Kong as we were getting into the city.











It was an amazing day and I highly recommend going out to see the races if you should find yourselves in Hong Kong during this time of year.