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Vassar College Digital Window @ Vassar Senior Capstone Projects 2019 Terminology in American dragon boat: a linguistic investigation Matthew ??? Alain Au Vassar College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalwindow.vassar.edu/senior_capstone Recommended Citation Alain Au, Matthew ???, "Terminology in American dragon boat: a linguistic investigation" (2019). Senior Capstone Projects. 953. https://digitalwindow.vassar.edu/senior_capstone/953 This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Window @ Vassar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Senior Capstone Projects by an authorized administrator of Digital Window @ Vassar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Terminology in American Dragon Boat: A Linguistic Investigation Matthew Alain Au 區智強 Independent Program Vassar College May 2019 Senior Thesis Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Arts degree in the Independent Program. ___________________________________________ Adviser, Hua Hsu _________________________________________ Adviser, Thomas Porcello Abstract Dragon boat racing, practiced today by over 50 million people across the globe, is the world’s fastest-growing watersport. The sport first came to the United States in the 1980s, and has since exploded in popularity. Recreational teams exist in numerous states, and while these athletes’ zeal for dragon boat may be similar, the jargon they employ on the water often differs. In this thesis, I will examine the roots of dragon boat terminology in the United States, and why and how these variances exist, focusing on three possible avenues for the transmission of these terms: the traditional Chinese/Hongkonger roots of dragon boat, rowing and its great history in the United States, and Olympic sprint canoe/kayak’s recent surge in popularity. As this thesis is unprecedented in its non-physiological dragon boat focus, original research was necessary; this research was conducted with a diverse group of American dragon boat athletes through interviews and a survey. Keywords: dragon boat, paddle, canoe, sports, jargon, terminology ​ ​ 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements 4 Chapter 1: My Dragon Boat Story 5 Chapter 2: History of Dragon Boat 11 Chapter 3: Cultural Context: China & Hong Kong 14 Chapter 4: Research Methods: Interviews & Survey 17 Chapter 5: Influences from Rowing 21 Chapter 6: Influences from Canoe/Kayak 24 Conclusion 27 References Cited 29 Appendix 31 3 Acknowledgements I am grateful for the support and enthusiasm of my mother, father, and sister, who have always supported my study of linguistics and passion for dragon boat. I write this in honor and memory of my beloved grandmother, Hing Au, originally from Hong Kong, who passed away in November 2014. I would also like to express my gratitude to the entire United States dragon boat community for helping me tremendously with my research. This project would simply not have been possible without all of you. As this is one of the first academic dragon boat-related papers not centered on health and fitness, I feel I must represent our community well, and hope I am doing so. Paddles up! Many thanks to Professors Hua Hsu and Thomas Porcello, my trusty advisors, without whom I would not be finishing this thesis. I also recognize and acknowledge here the countless Native American tribes on whose ancestral lands and waters we dragon boaters often train, paddle, and race, such as the Cherokee in Georgia, the Lenape in New Jersey, the Muwekma Ohlone in California, and the Timucua in Florida. 4 Chapter 1 My Dragon Boat Story When I tell new colleagues or acquaintances that, “I do dragon boat,” their immediate response is almost always, “is that like rowing?” Though I am never offended, this reply does irk me slightly. What many here in the United States do not know is the long history and ancient traditional roots the sport has in Chinese and Hongkonger culture; in my culture. Ironically enough, though, parts of modern American dragon boat racing may actually come directly from rowing. I first started dragon boat in the spring of 2012. My father, a first-generation Chinese-American born and raised in Queens, paddled with a now-defunct dragon boat team in Flushing called Rebels around the time I was born, in the mid-1990s, then raced on and off with various other teams in Queens; after a few years, though, he quit altogether. After we moved to New Jersey in the early 2000s and he retired in 2012, he decided to pick up dragon boat again and asked if I wanted to go with him to an open dragon boat practice with the only team in the area, New Jersey Team Dragons. As I was a homework-swamped high school freshman who much preferred computers to physical activity, I responded almost verbatim: “I’ll go, but you know I’m not going to like it; it’s exercise and stuff.” Though I played some basketball and baseball growing up, I was decidedly not athletic, even in the slightest. I went to that practice with my father ​ ​ somewhat begrudgingly, but little did I know going to Lake Parsippany for that first 5 dragon boat session would have a lasting effect on me and create a lifelong passion for the sport. During my subsequent high school and college years, I moved my way up the team’s totem pole from a weak and lowly rookie in the back of the boat to lead stroker, in charge of feeling/reading the boat, and setting and changing the rate as needed during a race. Today, with seven years of experience on NJ Team Dragons, my father and I are considered veterans, and have both held leadership positions on the team. Hong Kong In January 2018, my junior year of college, I flew to Asia. It was my first time traveling outside the Western hemisphere, and I was studying for a semester at the University of Hong Kong. Though I was there mainly to study, another one of the reasons I chose Hong Kong was the grand dragon boat culture; after all, it is the birthplace and global hub of the sport. The dragon boat racing community there differs markedly from its American cousin; there are essentially two dragon boat circuits: the expatriates’ and the locals’. Expatriate teams are sometimes corporate teams, but are more typically recreational teams composed of predominantly white expatriates who race almost exclusively against other expatriate teams. A very famous example of an expatriate team is Victoria Recreation Club, or VRC, known to some in Hong Kong as the “beasts of the island.” The VRC Paddle Team was created by Britons in 1993 during the British 6 occupation of Hong Kong and is renowned today for its high number of paddlers who make the Great Britain national team (“About the Team”). Local teams, which have even longer histories, have been formed for years by fishermen villages, and as dragon boat runs in their veins, the competition is fierce. Fishermen teams are usually named for and identified by where they come from; the most feared and famous team from Hong Kong Island is called South Eagle, where the living legend and “grandfather of dragon boat,” Uncle Mei, is from. Not just any team can choose to race in this he local circuit, though; as expected, only fishermen teams are allowed. Just a few weeks after I had settled into life at HKU and started paddling with, then ultimately quit, the university dragon boat team, I found and officially joined an English-speaking recreational dragon boat team in southern Hong Kong called Buzz Dragon 霸士龍, composed of approximately half expatriates (mostly white, of course) and half locals. Buzz was a very unique team, particularly in its positionality between the two race circuits. We competed in the normal expatriate races, as to be expected, but because of connections some of our teammates had to fishermen teams and the fact that half of our members were Hong Kong locals and spoke Cantonese (including me), our team had the honor of racing in both the fishermen and expatriate circuits. Even for someone like myself, who had been paddling for many years, watching and competing in fisherman races for the first time was the most incredible part of my entire Hong Kong dragon boat experience. Those races were especially meaningful because in contrast to most dragon boat races in the West, competition was not 7 everything; who won and who lost was not nearly as important as general merriment, camaraderie, and tradition. In the West, none of the traditional Hong Konger fishermen ceremonies, rituals, or superstitions are performed before/after a race; the sport has become sterile and almost history-less. It was incredibly eye-opening for me to learn about, experience, and take part in the roots of the sport that ties me so directly to my cultural heritage, as my family is from Hong Kong. As a linguistics student, I particularly enjoyed hearing the different terms that Buzz used, and the Cantonese words that fishermen teams uttered during race day. Buzz, as aforementioned, was a special team; three people on the coach/captain staff paddled on the British national team, while the other coaches and captains were primarily from Hong Kong. Furthermore, the fishermen cultural component of the sport meant that we Cantonese-speakers often conversed in the boat in Cantonese. This made for a sui generis linguistic environment in which languages and dialects intersected and interacted regularly. Team USA In July 2018, two months after I returned to the United States from Hong Kong, I drove to Philadelphia tried out for the International Canoe Federation-affiliated US national team that would race at the ICF Dragon Boat World Championships in September 2018 at Lake Lanier, Georgia, USA.

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