Sports/Events in Taiwan
Submitted by Mikey33 on May 31, 2006 - 11:06pm.
This is Mike, from Mrs.Stangherlin's Honors English 11/AP US History class/ participant in the 2 webisodes.
I have an interest in all different kinds of sports. In New Zealand you mentioned that Rugby was a popular sport. From your travels to Taiwan, have you noticed a popular sport, or sporting event that they like to play?
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Dragon Boat Racing
Hey Mike...
Awesome time chatting with your class the other day. I was feeling incredibly sick the other day and so I missed out on the annual boat race, one of Taiwan's biggest national holidays. Needless to say, I was pretty bummed out. As the name suggests, the holiday involves many different crews and their boats paddling 5-minute races down a local river. People from all over Taiwan come to Taipei to be a part of it, but it all started on mainland China around 2,500 years ago to commenorate the death of Qu Yuan, a banished poet who wanted nothing more than the warring Chinese states of the time to live in peace. Of course, it's a lot more complicated than that, as is his life, but that's the story in a nutshell. The Dragonboats are adorned with, of course, dragons. Something I learned in the past week was that of the 12 animals in the Chinese Zodiac, the only mythical creature, and the most dominant in nature, is the dragon. The rest are everyday animals...This explains the prevelance of dragons, not only in the race, but in Chinese culture.
As with other sports here in Taiwan, it seems as though ping pong is quite popular with school kids, but something that was a surprise at first but isn't now...is how popular basketball is! I took a walk down to a park yesterday and every basketball court was packed with kids playing half-court basketball.
Thanks again, Mike! Keep posted...if you have any other questions, please feel free to post them here.
Josh