When the delivery truck loaded with a dragon boat came to a halt in front of a group of young and old villagers, in Luotang, in Guzihou province, an area which has a long dragon history and where the enthusiasm for dragon boat races is as strong as football World Cup fever elsewhere, they knew their dream had come.
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| Dragon boat race [Photo/news.gog.cn] |
And it was all the result of crowdfunding, a process by which funds for a project or venture are raised through contributions from a large number of people, typically via the Internet. Thanks to that, the villagers raised 24,000 yuan ($3,840) to purchase a dragon boat on Taobao, a Chinese website for online shopping, for the upcoming dragon boat race in the district of Bijiang, in Guizhou, June 19 - 20.
And the dragon boat race, the essence of the Dragon Boat Festival, is a traditional sports for 4-million people in the area and the sestival was approaching. There's a saying these parts, "Rather waste a piece of land than lose a boat."
In 2009, China's General Sports Administration granted Bijiang a "Home of Chinese Traditional Dragon Boats" designation and, in 2011, its dragon boat race was declared a national cultural heritage.
There are dozens of race teams with more than 3,000 racers from various regions that take part in the dragon boat race every year, making it a splendid scene that attracts thousands of audience members, and, in the words of Yu Hanqiao, secretary general of the Chinese Longzhou (Dragon Boat) Association, "Dragon boats are getting more popular because of this event."
