Pollution making festival tradition less than sacred
Print Edition
with the dragon boat racing season in full swing, rowers in a village in south China’s Guangzhou have been struggling as much to keep the water from splashing on their bodies as to power their boats.
“The water is too dirty. I saw a dead mouse in there once, and every time I think of it, I feel itchy all over,” said one student rower from nearby Sun Yat-sen University.
Racing of traditional longboats is the center attraction of the Dragon Boat Festival, which commemorates the death of Qu Yuan, a poet from the Warring States period (475-221 BC) who committed suicide in a river in central China.
The tradition originates from the fishermen who raced to save him.
In Guangzhou, racing can last whole month, as villages host races in a relay style.
In Zhucun, more than 80 dragon boats from different villages showed up on Saturday.
Decorations, fireworks and drums enlivened proceedings, but the dirty water dampened the atmosphere.
“Look at these guys. They must be dumb to row in such stinky water,” one onlooker said.
For 49-year-old Pan Jianming, dragon boating on his home river is anything but dumb. A rower since he was 14, he is the organizer of this year’s event.
“Dragon boat racing is a celebratory reminder of our culture and our roots. It is an exchange between villages and an important occasion for family gatherings,” he said.
He admits, however, that ceremonial practices have had to change as it has dawned on people how harmful polluted water can be.
“Wherever the dragon boat went, people used to scoop up the water it had been through to wash babies, to ward off evil or misfortune. Nobody uses water from the river on babies anymore. We use bottled water for that purpose,” Pan said.
Some elderly locals still insist on honoring the “sacred water” ceremony, but much more cautiously. At the river bank, dozens of seniors could be seen scooping water into bowls and spilling a few drops of the rust-colored stuff onto their feet on Saturday.
“You see, only us old men are doing this,” said Chen Julin, 66, as he drew water from the river. “Contaminated water won’t drive away disease. Many people even worry about catching disease from it in fact.”
Pan used to feel ashamed when racers from elsewhere came to Zhucun. “But when we went to participate in other races, the water there was no better than ours,” he said.
Last year, Guangzhou’s Environmental Protection Bureau categorized 16 local rivers and two reservoirs as contaminated.
China has five grades for surface water. The average river quality in Guangzhou barely meets the second-worst grade, “for common industrial use only, not for direct contact with human bodies.”
“Dragon boat racing stems from our love of the water, but now we’re afraid of the water,” said Chen Haolin, 21.
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