波士頓龍舟節籌委會新聞稿
波士頓一年一度的香港龍舟賽將於六月十日（星期日）舉行, 時間中午十二時至下午五時。2018年 是波士頓龍舟節和龍舟賽的第三十九週年。大波士頓地區、麻州、紐約和新英格蘭各州前來參賽的有七十四個龍舟隊。屆時，七十四個隊的龍舟健兒們將在鑼鼓喧天聲中，劃著顏色鮮艷、船身輕盈的香港式龍舟， 在Weeks 步行橋和Western Ave大橋之間的查理斯河中激烈角逐。龍舟賽激烈的競爭將在以下十個分組之間展開：集團組、金融組、醫保組、大學組、中國大學校友組、社區組、俱樂部組、女子組，以及癌癥幸存者專賽。本年度龍舟賽及節慶由波士頓龍舟節組委會主辦，由以下公司和單位贊助：香港駐紐約經濟貿易辦事處、道富銀行、Harvard Pilgrim Health Care、Eastern Bank、華人醫務中心等。香港駐紐約經濟貿易辦事處處長朱瑞雯、麻州州議員陳德基、中華人民共和國駐紐約總領館文化參贊李立言等將出席開幕式並致祝詞。
龍舟比賽十日清晨開始，文化節目則午間開場。所有的活動均免費向遊客開放。贊助商、主辦方及特邀嘉賓將於十二時為龍舟點睛。按照中國傳統習俗，龍在點睛之後騰飛升起。為點睛儀式增添聲勢的是劍橋中國文化中心的中國鼓和大波士頓文協的腰鼓舞。
今年的演出，有受歷年端午節龍舟賽觀眾歡迎的劍橋中國文化中心和大波士頓文協的才藝表演，中國民族特色濃郁的京劇全彩妝演出，印度歡快熱鬧的寶萊塢舞蹈、韓國武術表演，以及明珠舞蹈團的傳統中國舞蹈、中國舞龍舞獅和日式大鼓表演。大受觀眾歡迎的著名歌手馮麗麗今年也會再次為我們帶來兩首動聽的中國民歌。
今年的表演加介紹並邀請觀眾參與的展演活動，保留了去年的亞洲文化中心太極班的太極展示， 另外邀請了牛頓中文學校的舞蹈班為大家演示並教授中國扇舞和民族風味濃郁的東北二人轉，女子巾幗舞獅隊演示並教授舞獅， 都有豐富大量的與觀眾互動活動。歷年最受歡迎的大波士頓文協的傳統手工製作，仍然會以強大陣容為遊人帶來各種工藝活動， 今年衆多亞洲美食攤位擺賣為大家帶來各式中國風味食品以及越南印度等亞洲美食，敬請光臨。
每年農歷五月初五（陽歷五月下旬至6月中旬）的端午節是為了紀念中國古代詩人愛國人士屈原（340-278 BCE）。作為楚國的政治領袖，屈原被認為是中國第一家傑出的詩人。屈原失去了國王的青睞並且被被驅逐出他的家鄉楚國，是因為他反對向強大的秦國妥協。在流亡期間，他寫的詩“離騷”顯示屈原對故國和人民的極大忠誠。公元前278，屈原聽聞楚國已經被入侵。在絕望中他在汨羅江自盡。等楚國人趕到河裏去救他已經來不及了，他們便裏粽子投向江水以紀念屈原愛國的精神，同時也希望吃了粽子的魚兒們能夠讓屈原安息。
如今端午節龍舟賽已經成為世界上的一項熱門運動和節慶，而北美的第一箇龍舟節就是在1979年時始創於波士頓，迄今三十九年。這個慶祝活動向美國和世界人民介紹端午節龍舟賽，為推廣中國的以及亞洲的文化，發揮了巨大的作用。在大家的參與和支持下，波士頓龍舟節定能永保青春並越辦越好。
Performances & Demonstrations
The performance schedule for 2018 will be posted at a later date. The 2017 schedule is posted below for reference.
The schedule may be subject to change due to unforeseen circumstances.
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Art and Cultural Demonstrations
Taichi Demonstration and Workshop By Asian Culture Center Tai Chi Program
11:30AM-12:00PM Boston Side by John W. Weeks Foot Bridge
12:30PM-1:00PM Cambridge side by Arts and Crafts Tent
Beijing Opera demonstration By Boston Beijing Opera Association
1:30PM-2:00PM Cambridge side by Arts and Crafts Tent
2:30PM-3:00PM Cambridge side by Arts and Crafts Tent
Lion Dance Demonstration and Workshop By Gunkwok Lion and Dragon Dance Troupe
3:30PM-4:00PM Cambridge side by Arts and Crafts Tent
4:30PM-5:00PM Cambridge side by Arts and Crafts Tent
Participating Teams
Below is the list of teams that participated in the 2017 festival. In the event the number of team registrations reaches capacity, the Festival reserves the right to hold a lottery for participation in the races. The lottery criteria will be at the sole discretion of the Festival.
Arowana
Asian American Civic Association - AACA
Asian American Heritage Association - AAHA
Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence - ATASK
In an effort to raise awareness about domestic violence, ATASK staff, volunteers, clients and supporters have come together as a team to race at this year's Boston Dragon Boat Festival. This is our 2nd time competing, and we are excited to be here again.
The Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence (ATASK) is the only non-profit organization in New England that provides culturally-specific domestic violence services to the Asian community. Services are free and available in 16 Asian languages and dialects. Your contribution to ATASK will help survivors receive emergency shelter, legal services, ESOL classes and other advocacy services.
Bank of America BAC Blazers
Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center - Bamboo Circle
The Bamboo Circle cultivates BCNC's next generation of leaders, volunteers, and donors through volunteering, social events, and charitable giving. We have a wide variety of events every year ranging from informal social gatherings to volunteering for BCNC's Youth Center.
Boston Kwong Kow
Founded in 1916, Kwong Kow Chinese School is one of the longest-running Chinese Schools on the East Coast. Over its 100 years, Kwong Kow has provided Chinese language and cultural education, academic support, and recreational programs for more than 20,000 children of Chinese immigrants in the Greater Boston/Eastern Massachusetts region.Team Boston Kwong Kow entered the Dragonboating scene in 2014. The team consists of alums, teachers, TAs, staff and board members of the school. Each season, the team is full of energy and high-spirits! Learn more about Kwong Kow Chinese School at www.kwongkowschool.org
Boston One Dragon Boat Team
Boston Professionals Networking
Boston Professionals Networking is an official 501(c)3 npo
Boston Students Org
Boston University CPE Professionals
This team is built on the 2015 bronze medal team of BU Interpreters and sponsored by Boston University’s Center for Professional Education (CPE, http://bu.edu/professional), which offers programs in Financial Planning, Genealogical Research, Interpreter Programs, Paralegal Studies, PMP Exam Preparation, Professional Fundraising, and Real Estate Studies Programs. The team is comprised of students, alums, and faculty members of CPE programs.
Boston University CPE Women Professionals
Cambridge Aha Dragons
Charlestown High School
Citizens Dragon
CYPN Storm
CYPN Storm, is a newly established dragon boat team cooperates closely with Chinese Young Professionals Networking (華人青年協會), an non-profit organization in Greater Boston Area. CYPN Storm aims to evoke leadership, teamwork, as well as sportsmanship and fighting spirit among young professionals and students through this traditional Chinese event. Be aware, Storm is coming!
CYPN Storm 2
CYPN Women
Dragon Divas
Dragon Divas is a group of women from diverse backgrounds and life experiences who come together to honor the tradition of Dragon Boat racing and affirm the power of women working together. We range from complete newbies to seasoned racers who were amongst the first to call for a women's division. Though many of us began as strangers, we are united in our determination to paddle hard and have a blast on the water.
Dragonheart Vermont Premier Women
Dragonheart Vermont Premier Women, also known as "Snapdragons," is a women's crew comprised of paddlers aged 21-49.
Dragonheart Vermont Senior Mixed
Dragonheart Vermont Senior Mixed is a composite crew of our Fifty Force (Sr. B) and Quicksilver (Sr. C) crews.
Dragonheart Vermont Senior Women
Dragonheart Vermont Senior Women is a composite women's crew comprised of women from our Green Mountain Girls (Sr. B) and Warriors (Sr. C) crews.
Dragonheart Vermont Sisters
Dragonheart Vermont Sisters (Breast Cancer Survivor Team) Dragonheart Vermont Sisters is a breast cancer survivor dragon boat team from Burlington, Vermont (wwwdragonheartvermont.org). We have a special sisterhood where the focus is on living, not the disease. We are paddling our way to recovery and growing strong! In our 14th season, we have been lucky enough to travel the world together. Our Dragonheart VT club also hosts the Lake Champlain Dragon Boat Festival (www.ridethedragon.org) event to raise funds for cancer-related causes in our region. Our labor of love is Survivorship NOW (www.survivorshipnowVT.org) where we offer free cancer wellness programs to cancer survivors in our Vermont community. We are sisters at heart, joined in the race to end breast cancer . . . at last
Eastern Bank 1
Eastern Bank 2
Electric Dragons NYC
What started as a small Corporate-sponsored recreational team in New York City has grown into a gigantic, fun-loving, highly competitive dragon boat family whose main objectives are to eat, sleep, paddle, and repeat. Our focus is to always have fun while continually raising our level of competitiveness.
Emerson College Lions
The Emerson College Lions will be roaring on the Charles for the seventh year! Our team of students, faculty, and staff is proud to represent the nation’s premier institution in higher education devoted to communication and the arts in a liberal arts context. We paddle to honor the spirit of dragon boat and to demonstrate Emerson College's commitment to diversity and inclusion in action!
EY
We came to kick ass and chew bubblegum...... and we're all out of bubblegum
Fudan & Tongji Alumni Associations
GBCCA Dragonauts
Greater Boston Chinese Cultural Association Community Team
GBCCA Newton Ligers
Newton Youth High School Dragonboat team started in 2013 backed by the Greater Boston Chinese Cultural Association. Paddlers range in age from 14-20
Harvard CSSA
Harvard Engine Nine
The Harvard Dragon Boat Team: A GSAS Student Organization is a student-run club for paddlers of all levels. The team was established in 1999, marking us as the premiere dragon boat team in Boston. Members of the Dudley House intramural crew team who were looking for a summer diversion spearheaded the establishment. They entered the Boston Dragon Boat Festival, hoping their familiarity with rowing in time might translate into the angular dragon boat paddles. Although the abrupt, aggressive stroke of dragon boating was not similar to the lengthy pull of the oars they knew, the team enjoyed immediate success, finishing second place in the local division. The team has enjoyed numerous successes ever since, competing at various races throughout the Northeast region and internationally.
Harvard Phoenix
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Dragonauts
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care is one of the nation’s leading not-for-profit health services company that, along with its subsidiaries, is improving the well-being of its 2.7 million customers. Grounded in our mission to improve the quality and value of health care for the people and communities we serve, Harvard Pilgrim is consistently among America’s highest-rated health plans (NCQA’s Private Health Insurance Plan Ratings, 2015-16, HMO/POS/PPO). As your dedicated partner in health benefits and services, we offer acupuncture coverage and programs like Eastern Harmony, which blends Western medical practices with Eastern traditions, and Visiting Family Medical Coverage*, which offers medical plans for visiting international loved ones. So, wherever, whenever you are looking for a partner to help get you healthy and stay that way, count us in! Learn more at HarvardPilgrim.org.
* Plans offered through International Medical Group® and not underwritten by Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
HMS-CSSA
Community member from the Harvard Medical School and its affiliated hospitals and institutes
J&J Ducklings
Johnson and Johnson Dragon Boat Team for ASIA group
Jiao Tong University
KPMG Blue Dragon
We are KPMG Boston!
Living Root - Green
Living Root is the biggest, funnest, coolest, nicest, drinkiest, speediest, irreverentest, kindest, hashtaggiest, inclusivest, well-traveledest, sexiest-in-a-life-vest, badest, goodest, best-dressed, unstressed, team in the Boston. Join us!
Living Root: Blue
Twenty laborers, one big boss, one heavily armed drummer. Living Root is a Boston-based dragon boat team comprised of 40 or so indentured servants. Culled from the ranks of disgraced Wall Street traders, criminals running from the law, and the feeble minded, our membership has nowhere else to turn. Provided with some food, shelter, and clothing, they paddle for their very existence. Results have been positive. They can out-paddle most motorized law enforcement vessels, and reduced nutrition levels have kept boat weight to a minimum. Team parties aren't as fun as you'd expect, what with everyone fighting over the last few baby carrots while the big boss feasts greedily on caviar, smoked salmon, and pizza rolls (because they rock). Although team members are paid handsomely with crisp $5 bills fortnightly, most have fallen into indebtedness to the team. Failure to pay monthly membership fees, per practice paddle rental fees, PFD dry cleaning costs, seat rental, side preference guarantee, bailer lease agreement, round-trip practice tickets (hey, we could leave you out there) results in fines payable with future pay advances, which results in additional glorious indebtedness. Paddlers can earn additional $5 bills by reconstituting globs of wax wiped from paddle shafts. Team members are required to change their surname to Parker and become "family members" thereby remaining beyond the reach of pesky labor and employment laws. Team morale remains high as evidenced by the sound of paddlers sobbing themselves to sleep each night with crystal tears of joy. Are you on the run? In debt to the mob? Please have someone read this to you. We're here to help.
Living Root: Red
Buns of steel and thighs of thunder,
Make men weep and gaze in wonder,
Gold hardware we come to plunder,
Move it or you're going under!
Make men weep and gaze in wonder,
Gold hardware we come to plunder,
Move it or you're going under!
MathDragons
MIT CSSA
Nanjing Blue Whale Alumni
NJ Alumni from NJU CPU SEU
Northeastern Chinese Student Association
The Chinese Student Association is a student organization that supports awareness of Chinese and Chinese American culture. As a group, we strive to unite students interested in Chinese American heritage and to give their voices representation in the Northeastern University (NEU) community.
NUCSA will be competing in their second BDBF in 2017. Last year, during their first season, they finished second in the college division. NUCSA is dedicated to community involvement and promoting sportsmanship.
NUCSSA Dragon Boat
NUCSSA Dragon Boat team was formed by a group of passionate students who were involved with the student organization, Northeastern University Chinese Students and Scholars Association (NUCSSA). Our organization provides loads of events in various areas every year to enrich Chinese students' lives in Boston area.
Ocean State Dragon Boat Club
Ocean State Dragon Boat Club was created in 2008 by a group who raced locally at the Pawtucket Dragon Boat and Taiwan Day Festival and desired to take the local opportunities in the sport of dragon boat racing to the next level. The club is committed to promoting the sport of dragon boat racing while encouraging physical fitness and camaraderie. OSDB is comprised of a mixed cast of experienced and novice paddlers who share the common goal to be competitive and have fun.
ONE Racing
Ohana New England is a competitive dragon boat club in Boston/New England. Our mission is to develop paddlers, our team, and the sport of dragon boating. We welcome people from all skill levels. Once you're on our boat, you're part of our family. Find us on Facebook (Facebook.com/OhanaNewEngland) and on the web (www.OhanaNewEngland.org). #ONERacing #ONEOhana #OhanaNewEngland
Paradise City Dragon Boat
Paradise City Dragon Boat is an all-cancer survivors and supporters team from Northampton, MA. At heart, we are a group of people who really like each other and who love dragon boating! We offer camaraderie and support to each paddler on our team in their fitness, their athleticism, and their spirit. If you know someone who lives in Western Massachusetts send them our way! www.paradisedragons.org
PERKINS WILL
PKU-NEAA Boya
PKU-NEAA Weiming-Share Capital
PwCPACIN
South Cove Stat Dragons
South Cove Community Health Center (SCCHC), founded in 1972 by a group of volunteers in Boston Chinatown, had its humble beginning from a storefront on Harrison Avenue. Today we are the premier Asian community health center in Massachusetts serving over 32,000 patients at our four clinics. We are dedicated to improving the health and well being of the medically underserved in Massachusetts with a special focus on Asian Americans. South Cove has entered a team every year since 2004; we were also a participating team at the 1st Dragon Boat Festival, no figerglass boats back then!
Springfield Dragon Rays
The Springfield Dragon Rays team is made up of both men and women, including breast cancer survivors and their supporters. We are part of PVRC, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization with the mission of providing healthy riverfront exercise and activities to the community. Dragon Rays members are diverse in age, background, and athletic ability. They come from all around the Pioneer Valley.
State Street Golden Dragons
State Street Golden Sun
Team NESA @ MCPHS University
THAA
THAA team. Go for Tsinghua!
The Boat For Kids Who Don't Paddle Good
We're pretty sure there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking, and we plan on finding out what that is.
Tianda Nankai Liepin United
Trapology Boston
Uhouzz 异乡好居
Uhouzz Network Technology Co., Ltd, incorporated on Jan 19, 2015, is an online real estate rental and buying platform for overseas students. Invested by New Oriental (NYSE: EDU), the largest private educational services company in China, Uhouzz has acquired more than 600,000 app users and generated more than $37 million value of rental transaction. Uhouzz has covered properties around the most popular schools in 6 countries, including the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Japan. Headquartered in Tianjin, China, Uhouzz has 15 subsidiaries located in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Boston, Chicago, Toronto, Sydney, London, etc. We are devoted to being the authority in student rentals and foreign real estate purchases.
USTC Alumni
Verdun Dragon Boat Club
Wah Lum Warriors
Wah Lum Warriors Dragon Boat Team is comprised of members of the Wah Lum Kung Fu & Tai Chi System, who are predominately residing in MA. "Kung fu" is understood as "hard work” and "Tai Chi" is the philosophy of balance between dualities, such as 'soft' and 'hard'. Through employing kung fu (hard work) and practicing tai chi (balancing and centering opposing elements, each Wah Lum Warriors Dragon Boat team member will embrace the fighting spirit of perseverance as we respect the power of water. On the boat as a team, the Wah Lum Warriors become the "Dragon" flying and playing with the power and tenderness of the Charles River. We hope to have a time of our lives while learning humility.
Wayfair Dragons
Dragons from Wayfair, a Boston company. Wayfair offers a zillion things home. With one of the world's largest online selections of furniture, home furnishings, décor and goods, including more than seven million products from over 7,000 suppliers.
Wellington Management Four Seas
Wellington Management Four Seas 2
Wellness Warriors Coed
Wellness Warriors Women
The Wellness Warriors is Massachusetts' first dragon boat team for cancer survivors. We provide a paddling support group for men and women of all ages diagnosed with many different types of cancer. No matter where we are on the cancer journey, it is our rise to the physical challenges of dragon boat paddling, our love of this exciting sport and our deep care for each other that create magic in the boat. Our mission is to provide new opportunities for cancer survivors to heal - both physically and emotionally - by being active participants in their own recovery and part of a mutually empowering dragon boat team.
Wolfpack Racing Club
Wolfpack Racing Club (WRC) is a new dragonboat team cruising into the great Boston area. We are a bunch of oddballs who come together to train, eat, and dragonboat together. The beauty of our group is that we each bring our own quirks, skills, and personality. Urban Dictionary defines it pretty accurately: "Wolfpack: A group of friends who consider themselves different from the norm, but are bound to each other because of their unique qualities." Our group ranges from no dragonboat experience to 10+ years of paddling experience. The common denominator amongst us all: We are one crew paddling our hearts out on one boat.
