St John’s Anglican College organised an international student team, supported by the Confucius Institute at The University of Queensland (UQ CI), to participate in the Forest Lake 10th Annual Multicultural and Dragon Boat Festival. Ms Vivian Qi and Ms Claire Li, volunteer teachers from UQ CI at the school, facilitated training for the students.
The Dragon Boat Festival is held on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar – an annual celebration. This year the Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated on June 7th.
Dragon boat racing is a spectacular and exciting event and the highlight of the Dragon Boat Festival. In China and many other countries in south-east Asia, the Dragon Boat Festival, or more correctly the Duanwu Festival, is a traditional and national folk festival originating in China over 2000 years ago. It is one of the most popular and widespread of Chinese festivals and officially recognised.
Around this time of the year in China the sun is considered to be at its strongest and the weather is at its hottest. The sun in Chinese tradition is considered to be male as is the dragon. Therefore it is understandable to celebrate the dragon when the sun is in its strongest period around the 5th day of the 5th month, a date also known as the Double Fifth, or Duanwu, from which the Dragon Boat Festival takes its name.
The Queensland Police Service (QPS) also participated in the festival at Forest Lake which was held last Sunday, June 2nd. The QPS Rising Dragons Dragon Boat team participated in three heats and came first for each race as well as the fastest qualifying team for the final race. In a thrilling, nail-biting final heat, the QPS Rising Dragons team was overall champion of the competition in a strong field of highly competitive teams.
The UQ Confucius Institute offer congratulations to all the participants of the Dragon Boat Regatta and in particular to QPS for an outstanding win.
