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24 August, 2002
DREAMING OF DRAGON BOATS
The second annual Colorado Dragon Boat Festival was a week ago, but I'm still dreaming about it as if it's coming up tomorrow. That's how much this event has taken over my life.
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I handled publicity and was honored to be one of the stage emcees during the festival, and Erin booked and managed the entertainment stage. It's one of the most satisfying things that we're involved with, in spite of the incredible amount of time and energy that's required of all 11 of the event's steering committee members.
This year's festival was the second; the debut festival was held last year at Sloan's Lake and attracted 15,000 spectators. This year, the festival drew an incredible 30,000 people.
What's the attraction? It's hip to be Asian these days, for starters.
| Whether we like it or not, the world has become increasingly interconnected and as Asians, we can't remain forever in our own insular tribes. |
From anime and sushi to feng shui and pad Thai, the many cultures of Asia are becoming more and more familiar if not quite mainstream to many Americans. In today's multicultural world, it's cutting-edge to lunch on Vietnamese pho noodles or to sip sweetened bubble (or boba) tea, a Taiwanese invention, with its wide straws made to suck up tapioca balls at the bottom of the cup.
And the racing is an undeniably fun, exciting sport with their exotic, dragon-motif boats and competitive team spirit.
Dragon Boat Racing has its roots in ancient China - doesn't everything Asian? - but in recent years the sport has become popular all over the world, with sanctioned international teams and rankings. The US Rowing Federation formed its first Dragon Boat team in 1983, and the US was a founding member in 1990 of the International Dragon Boat Federation. A simple Internet search on Dragon Boat Racing will find hundreds of Web sites about teams and races and festivals all over the world, not just throughout Asia but also in Europe, South Africa, Latin America and across Canada and the US.
Our races are all amateur, with companies and organizations assembling teams just for the day. The team members often have no prior experience on boats; last year's grand prize winners, the Colorado Mongolia Project, comprised mostly of students from the land-locked country, had never even been on water before.
Each 40-feet-long boat accommodates 18 paddlers, a drummer to keep time and a flag-catcher whose job is to hold onto the dragon's head with their legs while they lean forward over the prow to be the first grab the flag that waits at the end of the 200-meter race course. It takes concerted synchronized effort by the paddlers to push their boat forward smoothly - the teamwork is crucial because the difference between winning and losing a heat can be mere fractions of a second.
The teams in the Colorado Dragon Boat Festival were trained on Saturday by the American Dragon Boat Association, the organization that supplies the festival's boats. The non-profit organization is based in Iowa, an unlikely hub for Asian culture. Dragon Boat Racing has become so popular in the Midwest that it's enjoyed as a sport without any of the trappings of Asian culture except for the boats themselves. One of the members of the ADBA last year admitted the only time he had seen so many Asians in one place before, was when he was in the military and stationed in Japan.
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That's why the festival is so important to us: It's a marvelous expression of the local Asian population.
One of the greatest aspects of the event is how it helps all the area's Asian communities build bridges and learn more about other Asian communities at the same time that we all show off our heritage to the general public. Whether we like it or not, the world has become increasingly interconnected and as Asians, we can't remain forever in our own insular tribes. Japanese have for too long stayed within a small social enclave - psychologically if not geographically - and I've learned that it's the same for other Asian communities.
I'm not naïve. I realize there are historical reasons why Chinese, Koreans, Southeast Asians and even Filipinos may not want to mingle and mix with Japanese, but the fact is that in this time of relative world peace and relative global prosperity, too many people still shy away from reaching out and creating relationships with others.
Erin and I, on the other hand, have eagerly dived into the area's pan-Asian mix, and our lives have been enriched by the interaction and the wonderful friends we've made who come from every Asian heritage. We've also come to cherish our Japaneseness much more because of our outreach with other Asians, and find that we do not take our own heritage for granted.
Just because you have friends who are Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese or Laotian; just because you enjoy other cuisines or appreciate the music or art of another country doesn't make you any less Japanese. And, others appreciate your interest and open up to our own culture, sparking a cycle of sharing that helps break down walls that have kept people apart for generations, for hundreds of years and perhaps even thousands of years. Prejudice, mistrust, fear or even hatred between peoples may not dissipate overnight, but as individual people, we can make a difference in just the few moments it takes to reach out a hand and smile.
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One of the best moments of this year's Dragon Boat Festival came on Saturday while teams were training.
I was introduced to the Laotian team, which had so much community spirit they wanted to share, and so much enthusiasm, that they were bursting with energy. Not only were they learning how to paddle a Dragon Boat, but they brought traditional musical instruments and chanted and danced their way across the festival site to their team tent, where they had a barbecue fired up all day. Richela, a volunteer who was coordinating the elaborate opening ceremony for the festival, and Erin and I walked over to their tent to ask if they could provide some Laotians in traditional outfits to participate in the Buddhist eye-dotting ceremony to bring the spirit of the Dragon Boats to life. Before we knew it, we found ourselves dancing with the group and enjoying their barbecue served with mounds of sticky rice and fiery hot sauces.
We made new friends, and learned about Laotian culture (they race dragon motif longboats in an annual festival in Laos that is bigger than New Year). I'll cherish the experience as an example of why the Colorado Dragon Boat Festival is so great - and so important.
You can read about the event and see more photos from the event at the Colorado Dragon Boat Festival Web site.