Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival

I trekked out to Queens for some boat races at the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival. The boats were somewhat plain, but people were rowing hard.


They had a dragon dance as well for entertainment.



Here's a video clip:


Afterward, we decided to forego the 15-minute bus ride back to Shea Stadium subway stop and simply take a 20-minute walk back.* As it happened, we went on a bit of a world tour (through the site of New York's 1939 and 1964 World Fair). My friend (a runner) has run a race through this area -- which gloriously includes running a loop inside Shea Stadium -- but is not used to walking by the globe. At a walking pace, everything seems further apart, and you see a lot more details (e.g., long avenues with gardens) in between. She got a little disoriented.


Here is a closeup of the Pacific Northwest.


It would seem that the original Borden Cow dates from 1939. At any rate, her mug is in among the mosaics describing the contents of the 1939 and 1964 time capsules at New York's hosting of the World Fair.

The contents of the time capsules, to be opened during the 7th millenium if there is anyone there to do so, are somewhat idiosyncratic. But the 1964 capsule appears to take some riffs on the 1939 capsule. For instance, the 1939 capsule includes Beetleware, and the 1964 capsule includes a copy of the Beatles' recording of "A Hard Day's Night". Similarly, the 1939 capsule includes a pouch of tobacco, whereas the 1964 capsule includes unfitered Kent cigarettes. The 1964 capsule also includes some new-fangled things such as birth control pills, irradiated seeds, and freeze-dried food. It will not be very tasty in the 7th millenium, I think.

Here is a mosaic of Venus, apparently a copy of a Dali work from 1939:


* Unfortunately, the HK Dragon Boat Festival sounds a lot cooler than it is. You take the #7 train all the way out to Shea Stadium (second-to-last stop) for a "free transfer" ($2) to a bus that takes about 15 minutes to cross the street to Corona Park. There, you walk through the sponsors' tents to the shore of the lake, to see the boats. The boats are quite simple, with little in the way of decoration. I was expecting dragon heads, etc. So you watch a while. Then you go over to find the food and entertainment area, which is well-separated from the corporate sponsors' area. There are maybe 5 food booths. They sell corn on the cob, shishkebabs, Korean sandwiches, and a few Chinese pastries. In other words, the pickings are slim, but the lines are long. Although there are many vendors' booths, those lines are also long and it was difficult to justify waiting in a huge line for a cheap water bottle or plastic kite. But lots of people were loaded down with stuff. (Yes, it's free, but do you really want it? And where are you going to store it?) The entertainment consisted of a single Chinese dragon which spent some time in front of the stage and then ran off to the corporate sponsors' tents (the only place where you can actually see the race). The corporate sponsor groups brought wonderful buffet-style lunches for their teams. Not a few of the spectators were eyeing the lunches wistfully. There was plenty of room for improvement.