Dragon Boat Festival

It’s that time of the year again when the thousands of individuals that have been training for many months come together to contest their skills, speed, fitness and endurance at the Dragon Boat Races. With 18 paddlers, a drummer and a helm in long slender boats compete over a 500 metre straight line course.

Thousands of people braved the scorching weather on Monday June 2 to take part and commemorate the 2014 Dragon Boat Festival (Duanwu Festival or Tuen Ng Festival) with activities all over Hong Kong. As usual Stanley Main Beach was thronging with competitors and spectators as over 200 Dragon Boat teams competed for the various prizes.

The fifth month of the lunar calendar is one of the hottest months in the year. It is believed that poisonous and harmful things arise during this month. Some other popular activities for the Dragon Boat Festival are related to this belief.

The Dragon Boat Festival, known in Chinese as “Duān Wǔ Jié” (端午節), is here once again.

In ancient pictograph form, the character was often slanted slightly, making the two sides of the character representative of the sides of a boat.

The Dragon Boat festival, or Duān Wǔ Jié, celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, is one of the oldest and most popular traditional Chinese festivals. This year, it falls on June 12.