Best source: Indigenous Boats as Propaganda Dragon Boats in Rhode Island

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Indigenous Boats as Propaganda Dragon Boats in Rhode Island

Funny how just about anything can be put to use to make a political point. Offshore drilling causes an environmental disaster, and one of Americas most popular idiots, a proponent of offshore drilling, claims that it proves she was right all along. Another idiot consistently argues against civil rights in detail, then stands in front of the Great Emancipators statue to make the point before an audience of bigots that theyre all for civil rights in theory. Sigh.

(Click any image to enlarge it.)

And so it goes, alas, with indigenous boats. Last weekend I attended the 11th annual Rhode Island Chinese Dragon Boat Race and Taiwan Day Festival on the Seekonk River in Pawtucket. There were six identical dragon boats, donated to the event organizers by the government of Taiwan, a few major Taiwanese corporations, and a couple of Rhode Island companies.

A large booth sponsored by the Taiwan government introduced attendees to some elements of the countrys culture and handed out literature, some of it explicitly political. Although I did not ask, it appeared that representatives of the Peoples Republic of China were neither invited nor welcome to participate. Indeed, there was a Falun Gong booth, which pretty much assured the PRCs non-participation should they have been otherwise inclined. It all seemed like the event was designed by Chinese expats in Rhode Island to promote the Taiwan government to the non-Chinese in attendance. Not that theres anything wrong with their motivations -- its just demoralizing to see something so apparently noncontroversial as an ancient boat type being used for political purposes.

Underneath their colorful decorations, the dragon boats in Pawtucket looked somewhat industrial.

Okay, enough politics. The six identical boats are 50 feet tip to tip, 58" in beam, and weigh 1,500 pounds. They appeared to be made of fiberglass and, in spite of their lovely, colorful decoration, looked somewhat clunky and barge-like. They seat 20 paddlers plus a steerer, a drummer, and a "flag catcher." This latter individual is the foremost person in the boat, and his job is to grab a suspended flag at the finish line. Not only does this keep the steerers focused on going straight and not interfering with their competitors, but it also provides officials with a second visual cue in case of close finishes.

I was told by one racer that most race hosts in the U.S. provide identical boats and paddles for all teams. (He also said that some hosts have narrower, faster boats than I saw in Pawtucket). This is nice, as it makes it purely a skill competition among paddlers and takes technology and money out of the equation.

The race was a 300 meter sprint, straight, one-way. (One of the event organizers insisted that it was a mile, but with winning times of about 1 minute 45 seconds, I had to force myself into polite mode in order not to contradict him publicly.) Other dragon boat races in the U.S. may be as short as 250 meters or as long as 2 km.