Miao Dragon Boat Festival
The Miao dragon boat festival along the Qingshuijiang river is called
" Cha Weng" in Miao language, it is also called " Lou Weng"
which means eating dragon meat. During May 24 to May 27 of the lunar month,
the Miao along the Qingshuijiang in Shidong of Taijiang county, Pingzhai,
of Shibin county celebrate the dragon boat festival.
There are several legends can tell from why there is this festival. One
legend goes, one day, a fisherman and his son caught fish on the Bala
river, then his son was caught by the bad dragon and taken to the dragon's
home in the river. The fisherman was very sad and angry, he decided to
kill the dragon, so he used fire to burn the dragon palace and the dragon,
he cut the dragon into several pieces, the villagers came to eat the dragon
meat, thus it became dark for 9 days and 9 nights. One day, a women with
a little girl came to the river side and washed clothes, her daughter
used rice straw to tie a wooden mallet and pulled it up and down on the
water, she imitated the sound of gong and drum- 'dong, dong, dong, dang,
dong, dong, dong, dang", then it became bright days. So the villagers
made dragon boats following the wood mallet's shape, they rolled dragon
boats and beat drums and gongs on the river, thus this festival came into
being.
I've seen the dragon boat festival a few times ago, but that time I didn't
have a good camera, so this year I decided to go to Shidong again and
took some pictures of the dragon boat festival. About 13:30, I arrived
at the river side in Shidong, when I got there, a few dragon boats were
already placed by the river side carrying goose, ducks on the dragon head
as gifts. Before placing the dragon boat into the river, the shaman need
to do a ceremony first, he killed a chicken, offered some rice wine to
worship the dragon.
Around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, more and more boat came, and there
will be the dragon boat race on the river, but it will reach the climax
between 3:30-4:30, and I left there 3:05, so I didn't have pictures of
the climax.
Anyway, the festival was great. This year, many Chinese photographers
came to join the festival, and they more liked to be aggressive for pictures,
so I don't think it's worth for a large group to visit, it's just suitable
for private tourists under 5 or 6 people, because it's crowded and there
is no enough place for taking good pictures.
