Here be dragons: piece about boat races in BBC

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Dunno what to make of it. Cute and quaint, bit heavy on the “traditional”, lots of mentioning of The Other Side.

And yet the Dragon Boat Festival and the races are enormously popular. In Lukang itself, though the races take place along an unprepossessing stretch of river by a noisy motorway, large crowds gathered to cheer and stuff themselves. Stalls selling a panoply of Taiwanese food at its weirdest and most intimidating had set up camp. Why do the racers take part in it? ‘Money,’ a member of a team from a girls’ school told me, with the prospect of 50,000 Taiwanese dollars (£1,000) before her. Some intimidatingly fit students had a different view: ‘Employers like to see it on a CV,’ they said. A team from a civil service department were clutching a huge trophy, though on investigation they had only won sixth place. ‘For the reputation of the department,’ they told me soberly. Was there no pleasure in rowing? They looked at each other, and then at me, in puzzlement. Would they row, I asked the students, if the boats were simple rowing boats like the ones raced in at the Olympics. ‘Oh, we’re not up to that standard,’ they told me, not understanding that I was asking about their sense of tradition. I felt very European

Some quotes had me scratching my head:

[quote]On the lakeside, festive stalls had taken root; families were sitting stolidly on stools under umbrellas, the best spectator spots long taken. From time to time, the parents dispatched their children to fetch bags of tiny shellfish, spatchcocked squid from the grill, malodorous ‘stinky tofu’. The teams waited their turn; 14 alarmingly fit young men from the local fire brigade, whose spectacles and general air of thoughtfulness gave them the semblance of intellectual revolutionaries, went through their rituals.

‘Esther! Esther! Esther!’ they chanted, their arms about each other’s shoulders. Another team, on the jetty, jerked their torsos back and forth in synchrony, as if in high-speed Islamic prayer. The waiting teams getting a pep talk stood relaxed and confident, their bare feet apart, shouting ‘Ha!’ from time to time. This was a serious business. ‘Who is Esther?’ I asked. ‘I think they’re saying “Extra”,’ my guide said.

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See it for yourself if interested:
bbc.com/travel/feature/20110 … -dragons/1