This week saw the Dragon boat festival in Asia (called Duānwǔ Jié (端午節) in Taiwan) and I went to Longtan to witness this event. An artificial lake in the center of town served as the host of the festivities. A platform on the one side of the lake offered some dragon dances performed by young children. 
Around the lake stalls offering a variety of Taiwanese cuisine and miscellaneous products for entertainment to spectators.
But the main attraction were the races.
The origin of the festival is said to be the commemoration of the death of the poet Qū Yuán (屈原) who drowned himself. Admirers threw rice in the river to keep the fish from eating his body and paddled boats to scare away the fish. This started the annual eating of zòngzi (糭子), a sticky rice item wrapped in bamboo leaves and somehow the boat races. 
Although some other locations allowed several boats to race at once only two boats here raced against each other. Competitors didn’t bring their own boats but instead had to use the given boats. To ensure a fair chance was given each team got to race twice, once with each boat, so that performance could not be pinned on a specific boat. Seventy-two teams entered and racing started at ten o’clock. Entering the race was open to anyone who dared. Elementary school teams to University teams entered. Sports teams and companies sent their entrants. Towns, villages and suburbs entered their teams. Some teams were limited to a certain age or sex, while others had a range of both on a single team.
Participants were mostly in high spirits and seemed to enjoy being there, even when they lost.
From the side spectators sang songs and chanted to encourage their team. As this is in the countryside I was surprised by some bystanders starting conversations with me in English. Taipei is known for being an International City and maybe the rest of Taiwan is catching up. 
