Dragon boat racing

I am sitting at the north end of Houhai lake. It is a perfect blue-sky day – so perfect in fact that I  can see all the way to Guomao and the top half of the CCTV Tower (the bottom half is obscured by willows in the foreground). The last thing I want to do is get active; I’d prefer to sit back and enjoy the view.

 

But then He Ming arrives, the enthusiastic founder of Beijing Dragon Boating. He gathers together our group – a mixture of complete beginners like me and people like Sun Di who’s been a committed club member for the last three years. I’m expecting some land-based theory first but, after a brief warm-up stretch, we grab our oars and jump straight into the boat for a baptism of fire (or water, as the case may be).

 

For races, the boats are bedecked with dragons’ heads and tails. During practice, such decorations are ditched but the layout is almost the same: ten paddlers sit in pairs in a  long thin boat, while a ‘sweep’ sits at the back and steers. The only person missing is the drummer. He Ming’s rhythmic chants of ‘Jia you’ (‘come on’) and ‘Yong li’ (‘stronger’) do an equally metronome-like job of giving us a beat to paddle in time to.

 

I choose a spot at the front of the boat. It’s a decision I soon regret as I discover that the lead pair is all-important. They set the pace for the paddlers behind them and must paddle perfectly in sync with each other. He Ming quickly demonstrates the moves (‘Keep the paddle close to the boat, drag it back, lift it up, then twist your torso to reposition’) and away we go.

 

Our first attempt  is about as synchronised as the live music that screeches out of Houhai’s bankside bars come dusk. But the paddler sitting next to me, Ali, offers some advice and slows down so I can have some chance of keeping up with her. Our next go is much improved.

 

It’s Ali’s first time on the water in Beijing, but, as she later tells me, she used to paddle competitively in Hong Kong. ‘It’s the best team sport I’ve ever done,’ she says. ‘It really is all about working together in unison. When a team clicks, you go flying.’

 

We don’t experience anything like this flying feeling until the end of our two hour session. By this time, I’m exhausted. We’ve practised long, powerful strokes, we’ve practised quick, short ones and we’ve even practised with only one pair paddling the entire boat at one time. My never-lifted-a-weight-in-my-life ‘guns’ don’t take kindly to powering a boat full of 11 people with the help of just one other person. But at least I’ve had a giggle with the rest of the crew. That’s one of the nice things about taking to the water with a club that takes as its motto ‘friendship first, race second’; beginners are welcomed with an incredible tolerance and encouraged to stick around at the clubhouse afterwards for a social drink or two (which, believe me, with one of the best views on Houhai, is no chore).‘The camaraderie here is really great,’ says Ali. ‘In Hong Kong, I  joined my local club because there was this amazing blend of local people and expats who all had a passion for the sport. I can see it will be much the same here. It’s a  community cultural event.’

 

Dragon boating is a uniquely cultural sport: it’s perhaps the only sport in the world with a national holiday dedicated to it. Its mythical origins date back to the third century BC, when it is said that fishermen searching for the body of renowned poet Qu Yuan in the Miluo river (in today’s Hubei province) designed dragon-shaped boats to appease the dragon god who ruled the waterway.

 

With such cultural weight attached to the sport, it’s not surprising when, on our final paddle, tourists begin filming us from their giant plastic swan pedalos. I’m tired, I ache, but I’m glowing with the smug satisfaction of someone who’s actually taking part instead of simply gawking on.   

The crew