September 12, 2011 by John Corrigan
Racers in Dragon Boat Festival bring Southeast Asian culture to Penn’s Landing.
PECO ended its summer-long multicultural series Sept. 10 by hosting the Southeast Asian Dragon Boat Festival at Penn’s Landing.
The Southeast Asia Dragon Boat committee paid homage to the traditional water festival by holding the first dragon boat race on the Delaware River.
“Since we celebrate a festival overseas each year, we wanted to spread awareness about our culture in America,” SEADB committee member Sitha Puth said.
Puth said that for more than 10 years, there has been a dragon boat festival in Lowell, Mass., which attracts people from all over the East Coast. They chose Philadelphia to host a new festival because it has “a better venue,” and is a closer proximity for most visitors.
JACOB COLON TTN A dragon boat team prepares to race at the Dragon Boat Festival on Saturday. Teams were sponsored by various businesses and organizations.
A water festival is the Southeast Asian version of New Year’s that salutes the water gods for irrigating the rice fields. The dragon boat races honor the ancient tradition of using dragon boats for nautical activities.
While most paddlers were stepping into the boat for the first time, participant Connie Hang was born into it.
“My family has a rich history of dragon boat racing,” Hang said. “My uncle has been competing for years with Man United. I volunteered today to show people how Cambodians value their culture.”
Twelve local corporations sponsored teams to compete in three rounds for the grand-prize trophy. However, to many paddlers, the race meant more than winning and losing. Read full article at The Temple News.
2 comments:
I didn't like it. It was very lame. This is no competition. What they did was each boat race among itself and time who has the faster time. It was not the same competition where each boat goes head to head in the race. This is more of excercise drill not dragon boat race. This is not Cambodian dragon boat race.
I was there; it was suck big time. This is not dragon boat race; it call timing practice.
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