Dragon Boat Racing
Alumnus Paddles to the Beat of a Drum
by Wileen Wong

Pepperdine University School of Law alumnus Scott Wu graduated in 1997 and practices business litigation in his own firm out of Century City and South Pasadena, California. Courtroom battles do not sufficiently feed his voracious competitive appetite, so he's found a new challenge in an unlikely place. He paddles on one of Southern California's premiere dragon boat teams, the Los Angeles Racing Dragons.

Wu, who was raised in Walnut, California, discovered the sport of dragon boat racing in the summer of 2000. When first approached by a friend to check out the sport at a practice in Long Beach, Wu had no idea what it entailed.

"I told my friend I wouldn't enjoy 'remote control boat racing' because that's the first thing that came to my mind," Wu said. But finally, his friend convinced him to give it a try. "I came out on a Saturday and was sore until the following Thursday, so I figured it was probably a pretty good workout." And he's been paddling ever since.

Dragon boat racing is actually an ancient mix of art, legend, and athletics that originated in China and spread to the rest of Asia more than two thousand years ago. Today, the sport is second to soccer in popularity around the world, according to the Pasadena Star-News, with dragon boat tournaments taking place all over Europe and North America, as well as Asia.

The dragon boat itself is about forty feet in length and can weigh between 500 and 1,800 pounds. They can be made of teak wood or fiberglass and are ornately decorated with a dragonhead and tail. Each boat can carry twenty-two members-twenty paddlers in ten rows of two with a steers person standing in the back and a coxswain who calls out commands and beats a drum in the front. The beats of the drum serve to keep the strokes of the paddlers in sync. The strokes can range from sixty to 130 per minute, depending on the team, and allow the boat to travel up to twenty miles per hour. Races are either 250, 500, or 1,000 meters long on a straight course.

Wu said that he practiced sporadically until the local Long Beach tournament in 2001. After the race, he became addicted to the sport. "I think that dragon boating is great in that it sort of quenches the competition thirst some people have, but at the same time you build a new network of friends," Wu said. "I grew up playing team sports-baseball, basketball, volleyball, what have you-and you go to competitions and all the teams would mostly be local. But you head off to a [dragon boat] tournament like Long Beach or Vancouver, and you are competing with teams from China and Canada."

Wu is a sports fanatic and trained in various disciplines from a very young age. He started with baseball, playing in the Pony League at age eight and winning the "All-Star" honor several years in a row. His father was always very supportive, waking up early with Wu to get him to practice on time as well as spending hours in the field with him to help him strengthen his skills. Wu says it was his dad who taught him to never give up, especially during times of frustration. In high school, he played on the sophomore basketball, junior varsity baseball, and varsity volleyball teams.

Because of his athletic background, Wu took to dragon boat racing quickly, and he agrees when paddlers say that the appealing aspect of the sport is that it doesn't require great strength, but rather a keen focus on technique and timing. It takes a whole team working in unison to help propel a boat to glide through the water, but it's a sport anyone can compete in with practice. Currently, there are teams in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle that are made up of breast cancer survivors. In Northern California, there are teams made up of youths under the age of eighteen as well as teams of seniors or masters over the age of sixty-five. There is even a team of paddlers who are blind.

Wu thinks he will participate in dragon boat races for a long time to come. "I've seen teams like the San Diego dragon boat team, where everyone's a lot older, and I see the masters teams out there and realize that this is something you could do maybe until your 60s or 70s. So I plan to be around for a while."

Race organizers say there are now forty million dragon boat paddlers worldwide. Last August, the World Dragon Boat Racing Championships were held in the United States for the first time. More than twenty-five hundred paddlers from twenty nations around the world, including China, Taiwan, Canada, United States, Germany, Switzerland, England, and Australia, participated. About one hundred thousand spectators lined the banks of the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, the birthplace of dragon boat racing in the U.S., to watch the best dragon boat athletes in the world compete.

Wu's team, the Los Angeles Racing Dragons or L.A.R.D., began in 1998 with a mere twenty members. Today, the team has more than sixty members. In Northern California, there are already more than fifteen established dragon boat teams and at least two annual tournaments in San Francisco and Oakland, California.

Dragon boat season is at its height during the summer months, and every year L.A.R.D. attends tournaments up and down the West Coast. This year, the team opened its season by participating in the largest North American tournament in Vancouver, Canada, for the third year in a row. 

Vancouver is Wu's favorite tournament so far. "Over 140 teams compete in Vancouver every year, and when you arrive at the Vancouver airport, they actually ask if you're here for the dragon boat races. There, so many people know about it and want to try it. You walk down the street with a paddle, and people immediately know why you're in town."

The sport's popularity has introduced more people to Chinese culture. The heritage and religious beliefs of dragon boat racing actually date back to 400 B.C. and honor the memory of Qu Yuan, one of China's greatest statesmen who was a patriot and a poet from the Chu Dynasty. Qu Yuan was an adviser to the emperor and greatly respected by the people, championing political reform and truth as essential to a healthy nation.

According to legend, the emperor, whose rule was under a cloud of corruption, was threatened by Qu Yuan's teachings. Eventually, he banished Qu Yuan from his kingdom. In exile, Qu Yuan wrote poetry expressing his concern for his country. When his former kingdom fell to warring neighboring states, he was devastated. It was said that while walking along the banks of the Mi Lo River, Qu Yuan picked up a large boulder and jumped into the water, committing suicide.

Local fishermen witnessed what had happened and jumped into their boats in a desperate attempt to rescue him, but to no avail. Fearing the fish in the river would devour his body, they beat drums and splashed with their paddles in hopes of scaring the fish. Dragon boat racing now commemorates Qu Yuan's sacrifice by reenacting the rescue effort, celebrated in China on the fifth day of the fifth moon of the Chinese lunar calendar.

Many Chinese Americans involved in dragon boat racing, like Wu, say that the sport has definitely brought them closer to their roots. Beyond that, dragon boating teaches the importance of teamwork, which results in strong friendships.

"The sport celebrates diversity. Since becoming involved, I've met a variety of people that I would not have met otherwise," Wu explained. "And I think the competition is why the non-Asian cultures get involved, because it's great. There are many team sports out there where you can rely on one or two players, but this is the ultimate sport in that you rely on every single person on the boat."

Wileen Wong is also a member of the Los Angeles Racing Dragons. For more information about the team, visit www.teamlard.net.