Dragon boat season splashes off in Flushing

BY ALEX FUMELLI

Monday, June 22, 2009 12:32 PM EDT

Twenty Goldman Sachs employees in life vests are wet with sweat and lake water, paddling furiously to the sound of a beating drum on Meadow Lake. They are spending their Sunday afternoon in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, training for an all-or-nothing showdown with the likes of Citi, HSBC, and J.P. Morgan Chase.

August 8-9 holds the confrontation for which these kayakers are in their first of seven weekends of preparing. But the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival is so much more. Not only will it host about 150 teams of boaters before approximately 60,000 spectators over two days, but it will feature dancing teams and musical performances celebrating Mexican and Irish as well as East Asian culture.

“Making this a multi-cultural event is very meaningful to me,” says host committee chairman Henry Wan.

Wan is one of the founders of the festival, which started in 1991 with just ten teams. The idea was simple: “I like sports, the dragon boat itself is part of Chinese culture, and I like to promote Chinese culture,” he said.

Today, boaters arrive from Boston, Canada, and Philadelphia for the event, which includes 40 races and which will celebrate its 20th anniversary next summer. Many, but not all, of the teams are organized by businesses in New York City – although representing a company and taking the event seriously do not appear to be mutually exclusive.

“We won one of the races a couple of years back, but there are some real serious competitors about there,” says Ben Tam, a member of the Goldman Sachs team.

Tam has been there from nearly the beginning. Introduced to dragon boating after college through his martial arts school – “Growing up in Chinatown, the only body of water I knew of was the East River,” he jokes – he discovered a venture that has come to define much of his life. Today, he is in his fourth year of organizing Goldman’s team; the company supports participation in the festival as part of its wellness program.

What he enjoys most about dragon boat racing is its one-team mentality.

“It’s not about individuals. It’s about teamwork,” Tam says. “Without being in sync and rowing as one, you’re not going to do well.”

Tam, of course, also appreciate that dragon boating is one of the cultural staples of his East Asian roots. The 2000-year-old sport – involving long, narrow boats featuring drummers, steerers, and sometimes decorative dragonheads – is the subject of three new festivals on the Chinese calendar of national holidays.

The New York festival will run from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. at Meadow Lake, rain or shine. Fan admission is free, and teams can register online at www.hkdbf-ny.org.

THE QUEENS COURIER/Photo by Alex Fumelli
Members of the Goldman Sachs dragon boat team train on Flushing Meadows-Corona Park’s Meadow Lake ahead of their race in August’s Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival.