Dragon Boat Festival
The Dragon Boat Festival commemorates the politically minded literati poet Qu Yuan, who committed suicide for his beliefs by throwing himself into the Luo River. Legend has it that the villagers nearby raced out on their dragon boats, banging gongs and drums to scare away sh and other underwater creatures and stop them from eating Qu Yuan’s body. Tai O, a shing village at Hong Kong’s western end, has hosted the annual dragon boat festival with a distinctive local avour for more than a century. On the 4th day of the fth lunar month, a dragon boat with a small sampan in tow paddles up to each of the four temples within the community to call on the temples’ deities; on the fth day of this lunar month, images of the deities are put on the small sampan towed behind the dragon boat and are paraded along the water channels to pacify the water ghosts.
The dragon boat parade is organized by the three local shermen’s associations, the largest of which is formed by operators of yellow-croaker gill-netters. This association chooses as the parade leader the member who has enjoyed the richest catches in the season immediately before; it is followed by the boat with the second biggest catch. The lead boat and the second boat jointly assume the responsibilities as organizers of the event; however, all the members must make a nancial contribution to the event that is in proportion to the size of their catch. The shermen believe that taking part in the Dragon Boat festivities brings them good luck and helps them land even bigger catches. So it is considered reasonable to expect those association members with the larger hauls to contribute more to the event. The fth and sixth lunar months represent an o -season for the shermen of the Tai O area, and the Dragon Boat Festival is held at this time to allow many shermen to take part. The celebration at Tai O demonstrates the intimate relationship between the local shing economy and the religious festival.
