Dragon Boat festival

June 26, 2020

In Taiwan at the moment we have a holiday for the Dragon Boat festival.

That webpage makes mention of little tetrahedral banana-wrapped packages. Google tells me these are ‘zongzi’ (粽子). More information can be had here.

A few days ago NTNU announced they were giving zongzi away free, so I lined up for a (meat) one. They are very filling (because of the sticky rice), rich, not chili-hot at all; I liked the one I had. 

I was interested to see the dragon boat races, so I reached out to Chun Cheng about it. Chun Cheng came through in style, picking me up at an MRT station in a motor-scooter. This picture is of him standing (obscuring the front wheel) in front of his 125-cc automatic scooter.

This picture is of me at the same location, taken from Chun Cheng’s superior camera. Look at the sweat marks on my shirt – I estimate the temperature was in the high 30’s.

At the river there was lots of people and activity – crews moving to and fro, loudspeaker announcements, intermittent cheering for the racing boats. 

This is a dragon boat. Note the short paddles, the drum for keeping time, and the flag that doubles as a rallying-point for the crew on land.

The races were run over 500m. In each race there were four dragon boats competing against each other.

There was lots of media.

After that we went on Chun Cheng’s scooter to eat near Dahu Park, a scenic parkland with a lake. Chun Cheng offered to show the park to me but I was exhausted, so I headed home. In retrospect it was a pity, since I later found Dahu Park to be picturesque:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Aracon_Review-g13806767-d6952609-Reviews-Dahu_Park Neihu_Taipei.html 

Richard