Welcome to the 2007 Victoria Dragon Boat Festival!
The 13th annual Victoria Dragon Boat Festival will take place on the 17th -19th of August, 2007. From approximately 9:00am until 6:00pm, the dragon boat races and other festive cultural activities will unfold in Victoria's stunning Inner Harbour, a bright anchorage around which the city curls like a sleeping dragon.
Again, this year, 90 dragon
boat teams from across North America will race over Victoria's 500-metre course,
paddling from Laurel Point to the Royal London Wax Museum.
The Dragon
Boat Festival, Duan Wu Jie in Chinese, is traditionally celebrated
on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar.
Most believe dragon boat festivals were established to commemorate a great
patriot poet, Qu Yuan. But there are other fascinating theories to explain
the festival's origins. One is that the festival originated as a ritual response
to tabooed evil days. The fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar is traditionally
considered an evil month, and the fifth day is considered particularly bad.
Holding a festival may have been how ancient communities held evil at bay.
