Dr. Evil
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 OfflineTeam: Washed up paddler
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« on: May 24, 2008, 09:05:15 AM » |
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In today's Vancouver Sun....
Dragon boats about to set sail
Vancouver's development plans for False Creek leave out a very important institution
Miro Cernetig, Vancouver Sun
Published: Saturday, May 24, 2008
The dragon boat people drifted into the editorial board room of The Vancouver Sun the other day with some worrying news: Vancouver's floating dragons, if we don't act fast, are going to fly away to a more hospitable harbour.
Dragon boating, a cultural phenomenon that took root here 20 some years ago when Vancouver became North America's first city to offer a permanent harbour for the Chinese-inspired sport, is currently being overlooked in our current development boom. The blueprints for the final build-out of the former site of Expo'86 and False Creek are being etched out as you read: There's an Olympic Village, a $350-million art gallery, phalanxes of towers and a public park.
But there's no clear spot for our fleet of dragon boats or the much-needed boathouse on False Creek. You've got to wonder when this city's leaders and planners will realize they're about to lose an institution that reflects the new Vancouver.
We're now what you might call the A, A & A city -- Atlantic, Asia and the Americas, all fused together into Canada's West Coast metropolis that's known around the world. Yet none of the city's cultural institutions come close to fully capturing the 21st century complexion of Vancouver. With an exception -- the dragon boats, and the festival built around them.
The thousands of people who take part in it -- and the 100,000 who come out to watch the annual races -- are a true cross-section of the city. It's an event -- and sport -- that has gone from being mainly Chinese to a multi-ethnic and global phenomenon. There are at least 60 national federations around the world and that number grows every year.
Dragon boating has its genesis in China, about 2,500 years ago, though the history is complex and cloudy. One theory is that dragon boats began to honour the great Chinese poet Qu Yuan, who waded into the Miluo River to drown himself in a ritual suicide to protest a warlord's destruction of his home province. The villagers tried to rescue him by taking to the water in their canoes and hitting the water with paddles to scare away evil spirits. The other is the dragon boat racing began as a fertility and water ritual, carried out during the summer solstice to pay homage to the dragon, believed to live in the water.
While it was an ancient tradition well-known to millions of Chinese, dragon boating became internationalized only a few decades ago thanks to Hong Kong. In 1980 it began donating teak dragon boats to cities around the globe. The sport crossed the Pacific and took root in North America thanks to Expo '86 where four Hong Kong boats were put on exhibition and then given to Vancouver.
It was perfect timing. Vancouverites were just waking up to how Asia and the Chinese would transform the city. They lined up by the thousands to touch a brick from the Great Wall at the China pavilion. When the four dragon boats took to the waters of False Creek, they were a sensation.
By 1989, a small group of locals seized on the idea of setting up dragon boating as permanent cultural festival for Vancouver. Chief amongst them were businessmen Milton Wong and Terry Hui, both of whom have spent much of their life trying to bridge the gap between Metro Vancouver's Asian and non-Asian communities. Wong himself has long had his own dragon boat team, called "Paddling the Wong Way."
It took off. Vancouver's Dragon Boat Festival has grown from a handful of boats and hard-core enthusiasts to an event with more than 180 racing teams. The festival, which starts June 21, is so complex that the Canadian Army often helps with the logistics of keeping the races running on time.
Aside from the festival, which costs about $1 million to put on and generates about $3 million in annual economic spinoffs, dragon boating has also become a part of the city's cultural tapestry. Stand on the Burrard Bridge any day of the year and you will likely see one or two of the dragon boats on the water. Climb aboard one of the 300-kilogram canoes as it cuts through English Bay and you will observe Vancouver from a thrilling new perspective.
Thousand of school children are also introduced to the sport each year. Members of the public are welcomed to join a racing team. And its also a sport that is amazingly inclusive: Since there are 20 paddlers to a boat, as well as someone doing the steering and another pacing the paddlers by banging a drum, there's room for people who are blind, deaf or living with other challenges. Being part of a dragon boat team is being part of a small community, one that usually includes fellow paddlers from all walks of life and cultures.
So why are we in danger of losing something that the city has taken 20 years to build?
For years the dragon boat festival's organizers have been shuffled around False Creek. Each new development has squeezed them out of their spot and they've usually been able to find another spot to call home.
Now, however, with the latest push to develop the eastern and northern shores of False Creek, there will be no space left. If the dragon boats don't get a permanent boathouse in this round of development there will be no other place in the City of Vancouver with the sheltered water and dock space the event needs. Richmond, now developing its riverfront, would probably be the dragon boats' final harbour.
In its 20 years of existence, the Vancouver Dragon Boat Festival has never taken a dime of public money. But it may be time for the City of Vancouver and the provincial government to kick in to help launch a fundraising drive. Give the dragon boaters a permanent anchorage in False Creek and help them raise the $4.5 million needed to design and build a new boathouse It should be a great piece of architecture, perhaps with a restaurant, that would become a waterfront landmark.
Vancouverites put dragon boating on the map in North America. Other cities have come here to emulate it. It's also a terrific brand for Vancouver, encapsulating our fusion of Asia, Europe and the Americas. It's probably even going to be an Olympic sport in the years ahead.
Isn't it time to anchor the floating dragons -- permanently -- in the nautical artery in the heart of the city?
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