On July 31, thirteen dragon boat team members from the Cross Cultural Internship Program (CCIP) held their second practice at World’s Fair Marina for their upcoming race at the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival. They trained together with esteemed dragon boaters from the Wall Street Dragons.

Although it was their second-time rowing, the students quickly adopted new rowing techniques to improve their speed and sync together as a team.

"It's challenging, of course," said captain Parthiban R, who studies at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. "But we're confident that we will do well at the festival. We are pretty excited to compete."

The students plan to practice more next week to improve their speed.

"It's all about teamwork. We can't row straight or fast without working together, so that's going to be our main focus," added co-captain Macy and Brian, who studies at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and University of Macau respectively.

After training hard, the team retreated for dinner. “I like how Dragonboat brought people together as a team and the camaraderie that we share with each other” said Jacquelin Chu from Hong Kong University.

The Dragon Boat Festival is an annual multicultural sporting event held in New York to celebrate the fifth moon of the Lunar Calendar and is one of the largest dragon boat events in the United States.