The Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival in New York is an annual sporting and multicultural event held in August on Meadow Lake in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York to celebrate the fifth moon (or the fifth month) of the lunar calendar. In addition to providing audiences with traditional Chinese foods and performances, the festival, now in its 18th year, hosts over 150 dragon boat teams from across North America, making it one of the largest dragon boat festivals in the United States. Depending on the competitive division, teams compete for cash prizes or airline tickets.
The Flushing River, more properly and historically known as Flushing Creek, is a waterway that flows through the northern part of central Queens in New York City and empties into the East River. The river runs through a valley that may have been a larger riverbed before the last Ice Age. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it divided the towns of Flushing on its right bank and Newtown on its left; today, it divides Queens into western and eastern halves.
Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, often referred to as Flushing Meadows Park, or simply Flushing Meadows, is a public park in the northern part of Queens, New York City. It contains the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the current venue for the US Open tennis tournament; Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets baseball team; the New York Hall of Science; the Queens Museum of Art; the Queens Theatre in the Park; the Queens Zoo; and the New York State Pavilion. It formerly contained Shea Stadium, demolished in 2009.
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is the largest borough geographically and is adjacent to the borough of Brooklyn at the southwestern end of Long Island. To its east is Nassau County. Queens also shares water borders with the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. Coterminous with Queens County since 1899, the borough of Queens is the second largest in population, with an estimated 2,358,582 residents in 2017, approximately 48% of them foreign-born. Queens County also is the second most populous county in the U.S. state of New York, behind Brooklyn, which is coterminous with Kings County.
In 1986, the Hong Kong Tourism Bureau donated traditional teak wood boats to several cities including New York. In 1990, the locally based Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office promoted and organized the inaugural Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival in New York, which was held on the Hudson River in Battery Park City. Several of the original organizers are still involved with the festival, including Henry Wan, who now serves as the festival's chairman.
Teak is a tropical hardwood tree species placed in the flowering plant family Lamiaceae. Some forms of teak are known as Burmese teak, Central Province teak, as well as Nagpur teak. T. grandis is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. It has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters (panicles) at the end of the branches. These flowers contain both types of reproductive organs. The large, papery leaves of teak trees are often hairy on the lower surface. Teak wood has a leather-like smell when it is freshly milled and is particularly valued for its durability and water resistance. The wood is used for boat building, exterior construction, veneer, furniture, carving, turnings, and other small wood projects.
The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices (HKETOs) are the trade offices of Hong Kong outside the territory. There are 12 HKETOs outside the Greater China Region, and eight in the Greater China Region.
The Hudson River is a 315-mile (507 km) river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York in the United States. The river originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York, flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the Upper New York Bay between New York City and Jersey City. It eventually drains into the Atlantic Ocean at New York Harbor. The river serves as a political boundary between the states of New Jersey and New York at its southern end. Further north, it marks local boundaries between several New York counties. The lower half of the river is a tidal estuary, deeper than the body of water into which it flows, occupying the Hudson Fjord, an inlet which formed during the most recent period of North American glaciation, estimated at 26,000 to 13,300 years ago. Tidal waters influence the Hudson's flow from as far north as the city of Troy.
The festival is now an independent non-profit company organized under the laws of the State of New York and receives its funding through sponsorships by various companies. The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office continues to be a substantial supporter of the festival.
New York is a state in the Northeastern United States. New York was one of the original thirteen colonies that formed the United States. With an estimated 19.54 million residents in 2018, it is the fourth most populous state. To distinguish the state from the city with the same name, it is sometimes called New York State.
In addition to the change in corporate structure, the festival's fleet of dragon boats has grown from 4 teak wood dragon boats to over 30 dragon boats. Many of the boats are made of fiberglass. All the boats are approved by the International Dragon Boat Federation for international dragon boat racing.
The International Dragon Boat Federation is the international governing body for the team watersport of dragon boat racing. The IDBF was founded by representatives from Australia, China, Taiwan, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Norway, the Philippines, Singapore, and the United States in Hong Kong on June 24th, 1991. As of October 25th, 2018, there were 74 countries or territories with membership in the IDBF, with many other countries with a known interest in the sport.
