Submitted by Lamma Dragons'
Rachel Jacqueline / me@racheljacqueline.com
Submission to SCMP Sport, 23 May 2012, published on 26 May, republished here with friendly permission:
Team Lamma show paddle power
Dragon-boat club has a long, proud tradition that has embraced the expat community and helped shape the fabric of the island
Stemming from ancient Chinese fishing traditions, dragon boating has evolved into a fiercely contested international water sport. Every year thousands compete in competitions, with hundreds of thousands more taking part worldwide. And yet, despite the sport's global reach, Hong Kong remains firmly at its core.
Passed from local fishing communities to curious “gweilo” foreigners during the 1970s, the sport has been celebrated ever since for its powerful displays of endurance and timely precision over a beer - or several more. Over the years, teams of foreign paddling enthusiasts have banded together on Hong Kong’s shores, and disappeared, along with the ebbs and flows in the tides of expat traffic. But there is one Hong Kong “gweilo” dragon boating club still paddling after 25 years: the Lamma Dragons.
Like any good dragon boating story, it started with a drink.
“I was in the Island Bar when I heard a drum coming from the harbour,” explains Kathy Basey, a Lamma resident and one of the founding members of the club. “Fishermen were practising [dragon boating] and it made me wonder, wouldn’t it be great to have a team?”
Unlike the men, who had a football and cricket team, Lamma’s women did not play any sport on the island. Lessons with the local fisherman were organised and “the rest is history,” says Basey.
Teaching the women was both a joy and a surprise for the local Lamma fishing community, for whom dragon boating was about team spirit and the strong friendships formed.
“We were surprised at their enthusiasm and how hard working they all were,” recalls local fisherman Leung Kan Tai. “I remember one of the team members saying, ‘We have learnt about team spirit from the fisherman, not just timing and technique’. It was well worth it.”
After forming a 22 persons team in 1987, the Lamma women began training in borrowed boats on the island with local fishermen at the helm, beating the drums. They took part in Chinese women’s' competitions – the only ex-pat team amongst a fiercly guarded Chinese tradition – for a laugh, but also to make the Lamma community proud.
Back then, it wasn’t a sport, says Sallie Shaw who has paddled with the club since 1992. “It was a cultural experience, maybe a bit of exercise too, but it was a lot of fun on Lamma.”
But then things got serious. The women shocked the local community in 1994by placing first in the Chai Wan Dragon Boating festival against nine Chinese women’s teams in a hotly contested final.
“It was one of those beautiful moments I’ll never forget. Everyone was rooting for us – this crazy group of gweilo women – and it was front page news at the time,” reminisces Shaw.
The success was no surprise says Leung, given how hard the woman trained. “They always accepted our advice and continued to work hard to improve. It was very satisfying to see the first foreign team to strongly compete in the many local races,” he says.
Today, the Lamma Dragons club has 70 active male and female paddler members who train three times a week for local and international competitions, as well as 25 non-active paddlers. Though perhaps not the biggest dragon boating team in Hong Kong, their size can be measured by their spirit and rich history.
“Watching them grow to the club they are today makes us proud to have been part of the process. We hold their friendship dear to us and I know they do too,” says Leung.
Folklore says the furious water sport has its roots in fishermen who raced across the Mei Lo river on fishing boats to save poet and politician, Qu Yuan, who had drowned himself in spite of local corruption. They sped on their boats to retrieve him, beating their drums and frantically stabbing at the water with their paddles to drive away the evil water spirits, but to no avail. To honour and feed his soul, they scattered rice into the water – a traditional celebrated each year at dragon boating festivals around the globe.
The foreign women’s involvement in the sport is all the more impressive considering that Chinese tradition dictated that women weren’t allowed to paddle. Being a male god, dragons were untouchable by the women asserted Chinese philosophy.
Against the odds, the women of the Lamma Dragons have been a dominant force in Hong Kong’s women’s dragon boating ever since. At the Lamma 500 festival just two weeks ago, the women took out the gold over the 1000m and silver in the 500 metres.
It’s not the coaching that has driven the club’s success – though the addition of Gina Miller, a seasoned canoeist, as club coach 12 years ago has seen the club’s performance increase dramatically. It’s not in the quality of the boats (they only purchased their first two dragon boats in 2010). It’s about the size of the heart of the club.
“There’s a lot of people with huge hearts here,” explains Josh Sellers, who has been part of the club for the last seven years. “Like any sport, you’ve got to know your team inside out. Timing is everything in dragon boating: you’re one paddle in the water.”
Though Sellers openly admits that it wasn’t always that way for the male members of the club, who took up the sport much later and whose focused remained more on the drinking opportunities, rather than physical aspects of the sport. “We were horrible, we would come in dead last in the plate final,” he says.
The increased popularity of outrigging on the island as a way to cross train for dragon boating, particularly among the men, was pivotal to bring them on par with the women. “We now get three or four boats out on the water at 6am on a Monday,” says Sellers. “Dragon boating has grown from this tiny tribe of people to sixty people turning up and fighting for a boat.”
Above all, the club’s success has to do with the pervading sense of community and their deep ties with the local fishing communities, who exclusively invite them to local races.
“Lamma is very lucky because it has a long continuum in its paddling. It has that neighbourly, inherited feeling. We are a small community, we know each other’s business – probably too much. When you get in the boat that day, you’re just continuing a conversation you had on the ferry,” says Gina Miller, club coach.
“I one hundred percent believe it’s because of the solidarity of the team; we really are like a family,” adds Vicki Medcalf, women’s captain.
Tim Pottle from rival SMUGZ team reluctantly agrees that the Lamma Dragons’ “X” factor has to do with the community aspect, combined with strong effort. “I think they encapsulate the whole Lamma feel in their team as well. It started off as a good community spirit but now they’ve backed it up with some hard work and good paddling,” he says. .
The popularity of the club has also seen non-Lamma residents make the one-hour return journey to take part in the club. Caroline Dingle moved to Hong Kong two years ago and has been paddling with the team ever since.
“The team is really fun, it’s a good combination of experience and enjoying yourselves. And hanging out on Lamma is really beautiful and is a nice way to spend the weekend out of Hong Kong.”
“I’ve thought about [joining an HK team], sometimes I’ve thought it might be more convenient,” she says. “But it’s become my life…I think you can go a little bit crazy just being in the city."
After 25 years of paddling and with more people drifting from Hong Kong towards the islands, the future of the Lamma Dragons looks bright. “I think it will continue to build. People on the team are very driven and they want it to move forward and progress,” says Miller.
And now members of the club have their sights firmly set on the future generation of dragon boaters. “With our new purchase of a 10 man Dragon Boat this year, we will be looking at a youth development program,” explains club Chairman, Brad Tarr. “We'd like our kids from our to community to grow up to be competitive Hong Kong paddlers like us.”
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