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| About site: http://www.peak.sfu.ca/the-peak/95-2/issue8/dragboat.html |
Title: Water Sports/Dragon Boating/Events - Alive and Deprived at the Dragon Boat Festival Essay describing the author's dragonboat experience at the Alcan Dragonboat Festival.
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26/06/95 -- Features: Alive and Deprived at the Dragon Boat FestivalThe Peak, Simon Fraser University's Student Newspaper since 1965, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6,e-mail: epeak@mail.peak.sfu.ca, phone: (604) 291-3597 fax: (604) 291-3786 Volume 90, Issue 8 June 26, 1995 Features Alive and Deprivedat the Dragon Boat Festivalby Alistair Stewart Originally, I felt compelled by a vulgar (yet very potent)inspiration to title this article, "Let's Get Mongol andStroke the Dildo of Ethnicity While Figuring Out Why ItShould Not Be Called False Creek." I relinquished thatnotion to the cellars of my brain and the penthouse of thisarticle because my editors probably would not feel verycongenial towards my lengthy, crude and pretentious gall.However, as elongated and tasteless as the title is, it doescome fairly close to realistically depicting the pulse thatfuels and throbs in the main artery of the 7th AnnualCanadian International Dragon Boat Festival that happenedJune 16-18 at the Plaza of Nations.But to get into the dense and grisly anatomical details ofthis event would be premature, as some of you (much like me,just before I was given this assignment) may not even knowwhat Dragon Boat racing is. So, before your imagination runsrampant with visions of anarchic Oriental Viking war boatmaneuvers (much like mine did, just before I was given thisassignment), please allow yourself to indulge in a quick,makeshift history of the sport:"Legend has it that, 2000 years ago, a very popularpoet, politician, 'everybody-in-China-liked-the-guy', Qu Yuan,became fed up with the ruling government and gallantlytossed himself in the Mi Lo River and perished. Thefollowing year, Dragon Boat canoe races were set up tohonour him."Well, from those originally violent, chaotic contests,Dragon Boat racing has developed into an internationalevent. In 1986, Hong Kong donated a number of boats to Expo.By 1989, 30 to 50 teams came together for the first CanadianDragon Boat Racing festival in Vancouver. Now, in 1995,there are about 100 teams (2500 paddlers!) participating,with teams from all over the world.As a sport, is Dragon Boat racing worth your participation?Try it. I did. Four days before the big Festival, I ambleddown to the Plaza of Nations at the invitation of KelleyCaldwell, an SFU student who races with the Glen Airsponsored team.Lately, I have been engaging in an unconscious habit ofboarding boats and humming the Tragically Hip's "NauticalDisaster" within my own cerebral arena, until the ironyalmost pushes me to walk a plank that is not there. This didnot occur aboard the Dragon Boat. Two things strangled thesong from my memory: anticipation and the search forsynthesis--which, judging by my meager experience, areseemingly the two most significant aspects of thiscompetition."There's such a rush when everyone's synchronized. Itactually has a name: Dragon Fever," said Glen Air paddler,Isabel Kolic."There's just nothing like taking off at the start line.That anticipation," said Glen Air coach, Sheri Yano.Sheri, like Isabel, is definitely on to something. It was areally intense moment in my life when I first buried mypaddle in the water and idled in a fierce and pristineconcentration (which can be said of very few activities,marbles and serial killing being the others) waiting for the"go ahead" yelp, so I could instantaneously indulge in thefury of a collective attempt to gather flawless synergy.That anticipation can be heavy, like serving as a humanfootstool for an elephant.Moreover, that anticipation can be grisly, as Dragon Boatracing is, after all, a very aggressive activity.Competitors thrash madly at the water, spanking its upsidelike it's a little child who lit the house on fire; you arethe parental entity--a collective throng of two across andtwenty four deep, trying to dictate a rhythmic punishment tothe mischievous water body.In the violent search for perfect synthesis, I got thefeeling that my muscles would eventually burst through myskin and explode all over the boat, leaving your "humblenarrator" with only his head intact, to govern over theejaculated remnants of what his body once was.Then, coach Yano called out, "Reporters Only!", and Islogged onwards, even though I knew quite well that at anymoment the rest of the paddlers may be bailing out my bodilyfluids and limbs. I then recognized the true beauty ofDragon Boat racing--it's a friggin' hostile sport, but youdon't have to wear an awkward shell of pads nor cast yourbody into someone else's awkward shell of pads to relieveyour aggression.Okay, I think that's enough schematics; it's time tograciously dissect the underbelly of the ethnic cataclysmthat successfully went down at the Plaza of Nations over theweekend. When I arrived at the festival on Saturday, mid-afternoon,it was raining dollops. If you have ever seen a Dragon Boat,you would understand why they may become hostile to scoopsof precipitation. The boat is skinny, with a great number ofrows of two people sitting almost uncomfortably across,encouraged by a drummer positioned at the front and steeredby someone at the back. The boat is anorexic, as it isconstructed with sturdy yet nearly wafer-thin wood boards.Moreover, the boat is hydraulic -- once the crew has nestleditself in and submerged their paddles, one realizes that thewater is a scrawny waistline away from filling the vessel.Even though it is terribly unsuited for major tidal action,the Dragon Boat makes up for this fact with the decorativereptile skin (head and tail included) that coats its outersheen. If you sank, at least you'd look neat doing it.Capsizing would not be that life threatening in False Creek,which brings me to my next point. False Creek is a brazenlyinsidious euphemism for an inlet that should be known asCity Slough. I could just see the main Mongol himself,Ghengis Khan, paddling into modern day Vancouver in a DragonBoat only to find himself unable to plunder the regionbecause he is too stupefied by the uncoordinated enormity ofBC Place, or is too busy scouring the architecture ofScience World for the religious meaning it will neverattain, or is too distracted by a conversation he has justheatedly engaged in at the Ivanhoe.Alluding to the savagery of the Mongol Empire is appropriatebecause it displays how aggressive the competition at theFestival can become, and also, it emphasises the ethnicdiversity that sprawls throughout the festival itself.When I first arrived at the festival, I felt like gettingflamingly literary, so I immediately buried myself in thebeer garden. Two seconds into the program (I skipped thegreetings and the other campy political endorsements) wasall it took before I was streaming through the festival likea famine-struck fly in a city-sized compost heap.I was frenetically scampering throughout the grounds totaste test the global entertainment as much as I could:African folk tales, Mexican dancers, Polynesian dancers,British folk music, a Punjabi dance troupe, a Croatian folktroupe, Dixieland, Wolfe and Montcalm, a myriad of Orientalentertainers. If the Grape-Nut-eating fuddy-duddies at theUnited Nations ever had a bash, I would be shocked right outof my Joe Boxer's if the majority of these entertainers werenot called to participate.I did not even make it into the Discovery Theatre, where theshows were going on, for a good thirty minutes after boltingfrom the beer garden, as I was detained in its bowels by aninternational display of artists, crafts people, andcorporations trying to rudely capitalize on the festival'spatronage. Other than sponsoring the event, I did not thinkcorporations had a right to be there. However, business doesseem to symbolize multiculturalism at its best; money ismore recognizable than language.I was soaking in the aboriginal and Asian art systematicallydisplayed amongst Caucasian architecture, while wandering toa venue occupied by a Spanish band under the influence ofbeer from the brewing Mecca of Whistler (could a festivalget more multicultural than this?) And I have not evenmentioned the food fair, nor the collection of gadgets leftover from Expo or lent out by Lollapalooza. During my entirestay at the Dragon Boat Festival, I witnessed a total of tworaces, and I did not see the duration of either -- too muchelse was happening.Is the Dragon Boat Festival, as an international shindig,worthy of your presence? Let's get Socratic, and answer aquestion with another question. Is Canada, an ethniccataclysm, worthy of your presence? When I first read themulticultural shtick that begins the Festival's program, Ithought the hopeful and almost tacky diplomacy had beentaken directly from a self-help book for a nation. I merelyread the first paragraph and then went in search of the"cross-cultural communication and harmony" that beamed fromthe description.My search was to great avail. Don't get me wrong, there isdefinite Molotov-cocktail potential at the Dragon Boatfestival, but race riots seem eons away, if the potentialexists at all. An ancestry spanning all the continents ofEarth can get together for a three day festival of vehementcompetition, while seemingly the singular European racecannot get together for forty five minutes of soccer beforesome heads are broken. Yes, the festival seems, not to soundas naive as I am, very harmonious, and thus very worthy ofyour presence, much like the country of its setting.Not only is it hostile and multicultural without a clash ofthe two ideals, it is also productive. Dragon Boat racing isfor the weak, and the strong, and everyone in between.Although I feel that False Creek is not the most etherealsetting, it will still serve excellently for this developingsport.homepage  current issue past issues search contact  more issue #8 |
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