Dragon boat race helps Germans experience Chinese festival

Rowing teams participate in a dragon boat race at the Inner Harbour of Duisburg, Germany, June 10, 2023. (Xinhua/Shan Weiyi)

Du Chunguo, Chinese Consul General in Dusseldorf, also joined the race as a rower. He said the dragon boat race has been adored by German people over the past decades and helped improve communication between the German and Chinese people.

DUISBURG, Germany, June 11 (Xinhua) -- The annual dragon boat race in Duisburg, Germany, has become more of a festival than a race when some 3,000 rowers clustered on the river to compete and celebrate.

Since 2000, the dragon boat race has been hosted annually in the city. As a tradition, the dragon boats are elaborately decorated, and rowers are colorfully attired. This year, 140 teams joined the competition from June 9 to June 11.

Ger Hansen is the head of a dragon boat team representing Novitas BKK, a German insurance company. He has been competing in dragon boat races for over 20 years. Hansen told Xinhua that he is pleased to get a flavor of the vibe of the race with his team members.

Contestants compete during a dragon boat race on the Spree River in Berlin, Germany, June 9, 2023.  (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei)

Hansen said after so many years of joining dragon boat racing, he is now familiar with the tradition of the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival, a Chinese festival to commemorate ancient poet Qu Yuan. Usually, the festival is celebrated by holding dragon boat races and eating sticky rice dumplings called zongzi.

For Carsten Hahn, it's for the first time he watched a dragon boat race in Duisburg. As a German citizen, he had been working and living in China's Shanghai for over 10 years.

"The dragon boat race reminds me of the good old time when I stayed in China, and it is really a pleasure to be involved in the Chinese culture event in Germany," Hahn said, adding that he took quite a lot of pictures of the event and plans to send them to his friends in China.

On the banks of the river, local Chinese communities, firms and Chinese-language schools set up an array of booths to help visitors get to know more about the festival. Zongzi and other festival-related cultural articles were handed out to visitors who flocked to the booths.

Rowing teams participate in a dragon boat race at the Inner Harbour of Duisburg, Germany, June 10, 2023.  (Xinhua/Shan Weiyi)

Du Chunguo, Chinese Consul General in Dusseldorf, also joined the race as a rower. He said the dragon boat race has been adored by German people over the past decades and helped improve communication between the German and Chinese people.