The 23rd annual Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival kicked off Saturday at Flushing-Corona Meadows Park, the site of the 1964 World’s Fair. Over the weekend of Aug 10 and Aug 11, the students from the Cross Cultural Internship Program (CCIP) Session B participated in the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival in New York, an annual sporting event where colourful multicultural tradition paddles back into town for a weekend in celebration of the fifth month of the lunar calendar.
Meadow Lake in Flushing Meadows Corona Park was ablaze with life as the event drew over 170 dragon boat teams from around the world who come to race through the Queens park's lake, making it one of the largest dragon boat festivals in the United States.
This year, students were involved in the event in two primary ways - as volunteers or paddlers. Students involved in the volunteering aspect spared no efforts in fundraising for YMCA Strong Kids Campaign, the annual fundraiser which aimed to ensure that no child or family is turned away from life-enhancing YMCA programs. Through this festival, students also had the opportunity to mingle with the Asian Community and partake in a long established Chinese culture.
Enthusiasm was also brimming on the end of the paddlers, having committed a few of their precious weekends to train. It was the first time for most of the team members to step into a Dragonboat but that certainly did not affect their morale. In fact, it was their resolute determination and perseverance that put them in a distinguishable ground to perform and push all the way to the finishing line. It was a heartening scene as the team went out of their comfort zone and showed overwhelming improvement especially throughout the 3 races on the second day, clinching 3rd place (overall) in the 30th HKETO Educational Invitational & 2nd place (group) in the Sponsor's Challenge.
Benjamin, a leader of the paddling team and a student of the Macau University of Science and Technology said, "The camaraderie with my teammates, the encouragement from everyone else in CCIP; that was the biggest trophy of all. This team is the true champion in my heart!"
A cloudless sky, a united community and a shared memory; for many of the students, the weekend outdoors could not have been better spent.
Last but not least, there could not have been a better quote to describe the fighting spirit displayed by the team: ‘It is not the size of the dog in a fight but the amount of fight in a dog.’
