International festival of dragons

Mythical dragons will be awakened to the sound of the beating drum and brave souls taking to the water will greet visitors to Singapore this June.

The annual Dragon Boat festival, which will take place on the Bedok reservoir on June 24th and 25th, is both a modern event, involving top competing teams from all over the world and an ancient ritual demanding the blessing of Taosit preist.

Dragon boat racing has a long history dating back over 2,000 years to the warring states period of Chinese history when a wise and honest minister for state called Qu Yuan, who was also a popular and famous poet, drowned himself in protest at the corruption of the state.

The modern boat race is said to represent the fishermen's boats which went to look for his body, with a dragon's head and beating drum used to scare away the evil spirits.

Dragon boat racing now has a following of 20 million people in China and was introduced to Singapore in 1978 when the nation was invited to compete in the Hong Kong races, it has also been a competitive category in the South East Asian games since 1989.

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