running paddler

The Origin and the History of Dragon Boat Racing (from firebladesdragonboat@yahoogroups.com)

 

Over the years, Dragon Boat Festivals also known as Tuen Ng, the Double Fifth, “Go Ge Chue or the Fifth Moon Festival have become one of the most exciting and challenging international sporting events in the world and continue to be a thrilling celebration of athleticism and rich Chinese heritage. Most of the times the origin of the dragon boat festival is linked to the legend of Qu Yuan, a Chinese patriot and a well-known poet whose suicide in the Miluo River in the Hunan province of China during the time of the Warring States (474 BC – 221 BC) is commemorated. On the day of his death, which happened to the fifth day of the fifth month in the Chinese lunar calendar, the Chinese people have the custom of holding dragon-boat races. Tradition has it that the dragon boat race symbolizes their intention of salvaging the body of Qu Yuan. Boats were built with dragonheads and by beating drums and gongs they try to scare away the sea monsters in an attempt to retrieve Yuan’s body. Rice dumplings were scattered in the river to honor his soul and to ensure that it will never grow hungry.

 

Dragon boat racing was introduced on an international level by the organization of an international tournament in Hong Kong at Shau Kei Wan Typhoon Shelter in 1976. the event was a  simple affair, the competition was raced by only ten (10) teams composed of nine local fishermen’s team and a sole team of fishermen from Japan. In 1977 the international character of the event was strengthened with the addition of the Malaysian team from Penang. Following the successes of the past international races, a permanent venue was established in Victoria Harbor, Hong Kong. Participation in the event grew dramatically over time, from ten teams in the 1976 race to the 133 teams during the 1997 event, including thirty six teams from thirteen different countries. In the past two decades, the event has evolved into an annual highpoint in the international sporting calendar. Each year, the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival – International Races with its ever increasing popularity attracts spectators from Hong Kong and teams from around the world celebrating this rich and colorful tradition of China. At the end of the 80’s the sport was introduced in Europe and is now performed all over the world including the Philippines.

 

In 1991, the International Dragon Boat Federation (IDBF), the governing body of dragon boat rowing, was formally constituted in Hong Kong  and had regulated the sport with official rules and laws. Every continent has its own federations linked to the IDBF, and that includes our own, Amateur Rowing Association of the Philippines (ARAP). The competitions in dragon boat discipline have long become a high performance issue. The World Championships, European Championships, Asian Championships and other Continental Championships are well established and medals are now hard to come by.

 

Problem Statement

 

This paper will try to trace the history of Dragon Boat Rowing in the Philippines with the aim of establishing an integrated and comprehensive research paper that will eventually be presented as a documented historical narration. This should answer the following query:

                How was the sport introduced in our country?

                Who were the people who started it?

                How were they able to train? And where?

                How did they pass on the sport?

                Who were the first private teams? What was the highest achievement of these clubs? How were they a factor in the promotion of this sport?

                When was the 1^st national team organized? How are they doing in terms of success in major competitions?

                Did it grow as a sport? (in population, and training advancement)

                Do we observe the same traditions as that of China? Why?

                Is the sport even known to provinces or towns with fishing villages? Does rowing in the fishing villages or towns near the ocean, display the same movement in rowing as with dragon boat?

                How will dragon boat be introduced as a mass sport in our country?

 

Significance of the Study

 

Dragon boat rowing has been a part of the cultural traditions of China for centuries and it is now celebrated all over the world. Its popularity has grown rapidly; it is attended and viewed by a great number of spectators and fans. Relating such feats of this sport from all over the globe may justify the numerous prospective that it might incur to our own country.

 

Why do I have to trace its roots in our country? Because the Philippines is one of the countries that this sport had planted its roots, but being a young sport, not so many books are written about dragon boat rowing, or at least not one that is distributed here in our country. Being a traditional boat rower myself, I have heard so much inquiries being asked about it, sometime people even mistake it as an “Olympic rowing” or “Sculling” event just by hearing the term “rowing”, not being familiar with Traditional Rowing or more popularly called Dragon Boat Rowing because there are too many claims about its past. I am hoping that this research paper would set the records straight.

 

My research also intends to present the potential possibilities of the sport as a tool for promoting tourism in our country, with the aim of attracting teams from all over the world, at the same time promote and expand the sport in the country. The paper shall explore and satisfy questions mentioned below:

 

                Did ARAP ever attempt to explore the sport in terms of using it as a tourist attraction? Did someone else try?

                What are its potentials in terms of tourism?

                Will anyone be interested to invest in it?

                Who could be these potential investors? Or who could be involved?

                How much potential income are we looking at?

                Is there really a point in exploring this?

 

Do Filipinos have the potential to excel in this sport? The Philippines is a country surrounded by vast coastlines, oceans, lakes and other bodies of water that provides us with numerous opportunities to facilitate the improvement of water sports in the country. Our fishing industry is a deep-rooted livelihood in our country for centuries; it involves much rowing activity much like other countries that have more or less similar features as ours. Though in a country like Canada, and even our Asian counterparts like Indonesia, Myanmar and China, the sport of dragon boat rowing has reached the height of its achievement that we are still striving to equal someday. This paper, with its goal of accounting history to our people should be able to enlighten many of our own potential talents in excelling in this sport.

                Do we have the resources: manpower (this includes, the athletes, the trainers etc.) and financial support to achieve such feat?

                Should we start promoting it as a cultural festivity in the local scene?

                Will practicing it as a cultural activity promote dragon boating as a mass sport in our country?

                Will this enable us to locate potential talents in the sport of dragon boat rowing?

 

Supported by the fact that we are a country with 7,107 islands that is delimited by bodies’ of water, it is inevitable, especially for those living near the sea not to be able to explore the reason/s and expound on some probable justifications on why Filipinos has not achieved what we are prospectively good at.

 

Scope and Limitations

 

Most of the data will be derived from interviews conducted with the founders of its governing body in our country and abroad, as well as  from the first teams that was organized to compete internationally. Other sources will be from news clippings, articles and chronicles mostly ensuing from web explorations.

 

Dragon boat festivals have become a great spectacle. “The growth in the mass sport is enormous” (Ryfell). And an introduction to its substantial potential for tourist attraction may be able to influence the public that might place some interest in organizing an international event in the future. Interviews with the international contacts will be established for this purpose to be able to gather some data on international festivals and events particularly the Hong Kong Tourist Association. Past written accounts will also be incorporated to further elaborate my research.

 

Weaknesses in my paper may include some people who I may not be able to reach. There might be unaccounted sources such as lack of historical archives and data for the lack of books and library accounts on the subject. Further, the people that I am planning to interview may not accurately recount events that happened nearly twenty years ago.

 

Definition of Terms

 

ANVIL Executive Club

ARAP

EDBF

Dragon Boat

HKTA

IDBF

MBC

PRC

POC

PSC

 

Related Literature

 

Dragon Boat Rowing: Its History and its Growth

 

The Legend of Dragon Boat Rowing

 

I have been surfing the Internet on dragon boat rowing, and most of the facts I had gathered contains comparable information on its history. It is considered one of Asia’s greatest epic sagas that tell the story of Qu Yuan and his legacy of the dragon boat festival. Known as “Tuan Wu Jie” in Mandarin Chinese or “Tuan Ngo Chue”: in the Hokkien dialect. The dragon boat festival is traditionally celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar calendar. Also called the Upright sun, the double Fifth and the “Go Ge Chue” or the “Fifth Moon Festival”. Everyone involved in dragon boat rowing would recount the same popular legend of this great Chinese statesman and a renowned poet in China, Qu Yuan who had lived during the “Chan Kuo” or the Warring States period between 481 – 221 B.C., a time when China was divided into several warring Kingdoms. The seven warring states of Qin, Chu, Qi, Zhao, Han, Wei and Yan were striving against each other in supremacy. Qin, Chu and Qi were the larger, more powerful states that had vast resources and a large army, each of them wanted to unite China in their own name.

 

In the court of Chu two factions emerged; one standing in alliance with the state of Qi to resist Qin, the other, out of fear, for maintaining friendly relations with Qin. Qu Yuan wanted political reforms to build a more stable economy, a stronger army and an alliance with Qi to resist Qin. King Huai had trusts’ in Qu Yuan triggered the jealousy of the other faction. They had maligned Qu Yuan against the king and believing the lies they were telling him, King Huai designated Qua Yuan a minor position. Taking advantage of this situation, the state of Qin destroyed the alliance between the two states (of Chu and Qi), and then realizing that he was tricked; King Huai sent troops to attack Qin, where they were repeatedly defeated. Due to this, the king called for Qu Yaun to re-establish their relations with the kingdom of Qi. Again the other faction opposed Yuan’s proposal and lied against him to the king, who then exiled him to the north of Han River. The king was deceived into visiting the kingdom of Qin but he was detained and later on died. His son Qinxiang allowed the return of Qu Yaun in the kingdom, succeeded the throne of King Huai, but his enemies who are positioned at a higher office convinced the king to put Qu Yaun to exile. He was brought to the Hunan province in Southern China where he composed poems expressing his rage, melancholy and love for his people.

 

In 278 B.C. Qu Yuan heard that Qin finally conquered the kingdom of Chu. Overwhelmed by hopelessness, he threw himself in the Miluo River. Hearing this news of his suicide the fishermen rushed to retrieve his body but to no avail. The villagers would throw pyramid shaped glutinous rice in the river to prevent the fishes to eat Qu Yuan’s body. Since his death on the 5^th day of the 5^th month in the Chinese lunar calendar, the Chinese people would commemorate his death by holding dragon boat races. The tradition has it that dragon-boat race symbolizes the eagerness of the people to salvage Yuan’s body. They made dragonheads and made so much noise on their drums and gongs to scare away the sea monsters. They also threw packets of glutinous rice called Zhong-zi, to feed the sea creatures to prevent them from eating Yuan’s body. This 2,271 year old tradition commemorates the death anniversary of Qu Yuan.

 

The first dragon boat races were recorded in the Tsin Period, later becoming popular in the Tang Dynasty (618 to 907 A.D.), spreading throughout the Yangtze River Valley and the most of South China.

 

Dragon Boat History in Specific Locations

 

Surfing the net has led me to a very few historical narration about dragon boat rowing in specific countries where it is being observed and celebrated. There were only two known books published about dragon boat rowing and a Canadian rower herself, Pat Barker wrote one of them, titled “Dragon Boats: A Celebration”. Other than these two books there were not much written on dragon boat rowing apart from what you’ll read on the Net.

 

Several articles were written on dragon boat rowing here in our country but it has never written on its history, growth and progress as a sport in our country.

 

Its potential in tourism is still untapped in our country. In the mid 1970’s, the Hong Kong tourist information center headed the idea of organizing the dragon boat festival to promote tourism. “The year 1976 marked the beginning of the development of the dragon boating and is now being practiced in a lot of countries today. Its success was impressive as pictures of the Hong Kong harbor was presented around the world. More than 25 years later the numbers show impressive development of the sport, there are 20 million dragon boat participants in China alone and it has spread to all other continents as well”. (Ryfell)

 

It is the fastest growing water sport in the world today. Over 2,000,000 people worldwide participated in dragon boat racing in 1996. in Canada alone, which the international dragon boat racing community consider a world power, there were over 7,000 Canadians who participated in the 1996 festival, a 37 % increase over the past (Cyn). Canada holds its big dragon boat events in Ontario, where 250 thousand people turn out each year for the Toronto GWN race festival. Thousands of other Ontarians attended the Waterloo, Mississauga, Kingston, Ottawa, Sudbury, Guelph and Samia festivals. In Western Canada, the large dragon boat festivals are held in Calgary, Kelowna, Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton and Saskatoon. The Calgary and Kelowna festivals each draw 30,000 spectators and over 1,500 racers from around the country each summer. The even larger Vancouver festival has the honor of hosting the annual Alcan competition, drawing thousands of spectators to the shores of False Creek (www.edmdragonboat.com/).

 

There are companies in Sweden that were founded for the sole reason to organize dragon boat festivals each year, like the one in Malmo/SWE that attracts up to 600 teams from companies, clubs etc. Apparently there are 1500 teams in Norway and Sweden, 1000 teams just in Great Britain and Germany is proud of  having close to 2000 teams, which adds up close to 50,000 active members (Ryfell).

 

From San Francisco to New York, and along the Mississippi River in places as unlikely as Dubuque, Iowa, more than 400 teams are dragon boating, said Iowan Gary Carstens of  the  United States Dragon Boat Federation. Most dragon boating hotspots are are in the Midwest, which has 275 teams. Nearly 70 teams train in New York City and some 80 teams practice in and around Portland, Oregon. (www.Canoe.com/CNEWSFeatures0009/01_dragonboats.html)

 

The sport of dragon boat rowing is also being a trained and celebrated in countries like, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lebanon, Netherlands, North Mariana Islands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, and of course in our Asian neighbors. 

 

In 1997, the Second World Dragon Boat Championship was held with the International Dragon Boat Races. Over 130 teams, including 36 overseas teams from 13 countries participated in the races (www.hkdba.com.hk/trend.htm)

 

The statistics evidently illustrates a promising future. Not only as a sport but also as a potential tourist attraction that can possibly reap a great deal of economic possibilities.

 

In the Washington Business Journal, tourism officials organized a new festival, which they hoped would become a popular annual event. They hoped the dragon boat races fire up the tourism sector (dated 2002 – 04 -29). The festival was initially being organized to celebrate the 10^th anniversary of the D.C. chapter of the Chinese Women’s League. The league sponsoring the event, expected to draw 2,000 to 4,000 visitors. Linda Lee, owner of the Hunan Chinatown Restaurant, who is also an advisory board member for the festival committee says the September 11 attacks inspired the group to help the local tourism community, 40 teams signed up to participate. Dragon boat festivals already are in place in several cities including Philadelphia, Boston, Seattle and Los Angeles. (Cube). Its potential market and the opportunity it has to offer are just too great for the sport to remain in the background.

 

Further, the beauty of the Dragon Boat Festival events extends beyond the boundaries of competition and the festival. It was used as an avenue of interface between one culture and another and a great team building activity to many corporations around the world. It is in fact, become one of New Zealand’s capital’s fastest growing corporate sport (www.dragonboat.org.nz/wcorporate.htm).

 

Also, it has been employed to raise money and awareness for cancer research (Drummond, -Young) and a successful fund raising activity for charities.

 

Indeed this sport has much promise. The comprehension of its related verities from other countries might justify and validate the possible values it might incite. Also, the account narration of its origin and growth in our country might launch the awareness on dragon boat rowing as a great sport.

 

 

Methods of research and Procedures

 

The historical method will be used in this research. I will conduct a systematic search for documents and other sources that will be able to track down everything that concerns the sport of dragon boat rowing with the sole purpose of objectively and accurately reconstructing its origin, in the Philippines. Through interviews with primary sources like the ARAP President Benjamin Ramos, Philippine National Team Head Coach, Mr. Nestor Ilagan, ANVIL Executive Club past President, Mr. Peter Mangasing or  their past Chairman, Mr. George Sy, Mr. JM Ongsiaco, the past team captain of the BENCH dragon boat team, (one of the first team in the country) along with Richard Gomez and Mr. Jay Heredia, the members of the same aforementioned team. Also Mr. Ronnie Jalandoni, one of the founding members of the Manila Dragon  Bay Boat Team (again, one of the first organized teams in the country) Mr. Edmund Li, past president of the Philippine Dragon Boat Rowing team along with Ms. Rona Dizon-Gavino, past team captain of the same team and the 1^st Team captain of the National Women’s team. Other founders of the different teams that I still have the task to identify in order to follow the sports progress in our country.

 

The interviews will be recorded on tape with the permission of the interviewees mentioned above except for the other founders of the different existing and previously existing teams in the local dragon boat scene where I will prepare a questionnaire that will answer the following:

 

                Name:

                Affiliation:

                Year of the Team’s conception:

                Position:

                Name of the co-founders (if any):

 

                Team’s brief history: (please limit to one paragraph)

 

                Team’s best achievement in local races:

 

 

                Team’s best achievement in international races:

 

 

                Team’s objectives/goals (limit to three):

 

               

The interviews that will be conducted with the rest of the people mentioned above will have different sets of interview questions, since they had played different roles in influencing what dragon boat is today.

 

The other data will be gathered through interviews by means of the internet where I will try to establish relations with the president of the HKTA, IDBF, and the other necessary subjects who can substantiate my intentions.

 

 

References:

 

Francois Ryfell, http://www.canoeicf.com/dragon.dragon.htm

Mark Cyr, www.dragon-boat.net/historyb.htm

www.edmdragonboat.com/, 7/9/2000

www.canoe.com/CNEWSFeatures0009/01_dragonboats.html. 5/6/2003

www.hkdba.com.hk/trnd.htm, 7/4/2002

Christine Cube, www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2002/04/29/newscolumn9.html, 5/21/2003

Corporate Teams:  Capital’s Fastest Growing Corporate Sport www.dragonboat.org.nz/wcorporate.htm, 7/5/2002

Ramsay Drummond, -Young, www.dragon-boats.net/history_of_dragon_boats.htm, 5/21/2003

Qu Yuan and the Dragon Boat Festival,     

www.chinavoc.com/history/donzhou/quyuan.html , 5/5/2003