The 30th anniversary of the Boston Dragon Boat Festival took place on Sunday, June 7th, 2009, along the Charles River. It was definitely a celebratory event for everyone involved, as the Boston Dragon Boat organization honored three full decades of this age-old tradition. The temperature and the humidity were absolutely perfect, both for the dragon boat races on the Boston side of the river, as well as for the festivities on the Cambridge side. Complementing the 36 competing dragon boat teams were an AIDS walk-a-thon as well as a graduation ceremony for Harvard University students. It was no coincidence, then, that the crowd was thickly populated throughout the entire day.
Representing NAAAP Boston was a united crew of 19 paddlers, led by Timmy Wong as the Team Captain. They donned yellow t-shirts, with red text, and the tag line "got naaap?" written across the back. These t-shirts definitely drew the attention of onlookers, thus raising the awareness of NAAAP. Thanks to the coaches Dave & Sandy Parker from Living Root (www.livingroot.org), the NAAAP Boston team started practices on April 25th. Each Thursday and Saturday, they would gather together for 2 hours to master this team-oriented water sport. The practices were intense, and the grand tournament was even more so. Without a doubt, our crew epitomized the definition of "camaraderie."
On the Cambridge side, the festivities were plentiful enough to keep everyone busy. Some of the activities included Chinese drumming, lion dancing, Taekwon-do martial arts, and Japanese Taiko drumming. And, of course, there were enough food vendors and bubble tea on site to keep everyone's tummies busy, too.
After the tournament, the players and volunteers were graciously hosted by the former President of NAAAP National, Vincent Yee. We were honored and privileged to have him open his doors for the after-party, and give back to the NAAAP community.
The 2009 roster:
1. Chan, Jason
2. Chang, Chien-Mei
3. Chen, Feng
4. Chin, Ernie
5. Chou, Hsiao-Ting
6. Danielson, Carl
7. Duan, Sunny
8. Lathan, Emma
9. Lee, Calvin
10. Lee, Julien
11. Louie, Ed
12. Ly, Chau (Team Captain 2010)
13. Torres, Ricardo
14. Tran, Ngoc
15. Vongviengkham, Khamla
16. Wong, Timmy (Team Captain 2009)
17. Wu, Taojun
18. Xie, Christie
19. Yasner, Lisa
20. Zhou, Wu
