Word: dragon
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That just one dragon-boat festival could turn a loner athlete into a committed groupie is no surprise to Jeff Campbell. He watched his first dragon-boat festival in Portland, Ore., in 1993 and left transformed. "[It] has this visceral feel that appeals to everyone," Campbell says. "The beat of the drums, the spray of the water from the crashing bow of the boat, and 20 people working as one to breathe life into the dragon...
Until she stepped into a dragon boat, Kathy Pollonais-Britt was most emphatically not a team player. The veteran marathon runner loved the solitude of pounding the pavement, not the egoism and pressure of team sports. "I'd never been a groupie," she says. But when her employer, the health-care company Kaiser Permanente, sponsored the San Francisco International Dragon Boat Festival last year, the social worker was intrigued. In dragon-boat racing, a 2,000-year-old Chinese sport traditionally held on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, paddlers race to a drummer's beat...
Campbell, who had previously played golf and beach volleyball, eventually raced on the U.S. national team at two world championships. After leaving a career in corporate security, he decided to devote himself full time to organizing dragon-boat festivals. He is now one of a handful of dragon-boat diehards--race organizers, boat suppliers and equipment designers--who are trying to turn the ancient Chinese pastime into the next big thing in American team sports...
...years ago, the only way to see a dragon boat was to visit one of the handful of festivals organized primarily by Chinese-American cultural organizations in cities with large Asian-American populations, like New York City and San Francisco. The popularity of those events (the annual race held in Flushing, N.Y., attracted 50,000 spectators last year) spread their appeal to community groups looking for a fun summer fund-raising event. Last year, according to Campbell, more than 75 dragon-boat festivals were held in 31 states and 70 cities across the country, with participation up 20% over...
...reject violence and recognize Israel. At the same time, the Kremlin-managed energy monopoly, Gazprom, attempts to assert power in a classic, ham-fisted Russian manner—just remember the gas sales to Ukraine last New Year.Although it ultimately failed, the growing ties with the energy-hungry Chinese dragon should make Europeans ever more worried about their dependence on Russian gas. With decreasing levels of democracy and freedom to dissent with the government, Putin’s Russia can be relied upon neither for gas, nor for global stability. Back in the day, the Pravda newspaper was considered...