Interview by Yuki Lei
Every year on Dragon Boat Festival, savouring zongzi (粽子; “joong” in Cantonese) and watching dragon boat races are indispensable traditions in China, and Macau is no exception, when the annual races take place at the Nam Van Lake Nautical Centre, usually attracting a large number of spectators. But how did the dragon boat building industry get started?
Macau marks Dragon Boat Festival as a public holiday today.
Boat Builder Tam Kam Chun, who had been engaged in the shipbuilding industry since 1964, told The Macau Post Daily in an interview at his former shipyard in Coloane’s Lai Chi Vun Village that since the 1990s, wooden dragon boats have gradually been replaced in Macau by fibreglass boats produced in the Chinese mainland, and nowadays there are fewer than 10 people in the city who know how to build traditional wooden dragon boats, and most of shipwrights are already senior citizens – Tam is one of them.
Although Tam, who is in his sixties, entered the industry back in 1964, he only came into contact with the production of dragon boats in 1984. He said that there were not many craftsmen even then who still made dragon boats, and there were only about 100 local shipwrights who could make dragon boats. “Not everyone can build a dragon boat because it really tests the skills of the shipbuilder”, he underlined.
Even though the size of a dragon boat is smaller than that of fishing boats, the method of making a dragon boat is more complicated and detailed, Tam said, adding that when making a dragon boat, the shipbuilder needs to ensure that the planks of wood are tightly connected because, unlike fishing boats, dragon boats mainly use joints as the only way to prevent water seeping into the vessel.
The production of dragon boats is time sensitive, Tam said, adding that since the local dragon boats were mainly used for dragon boat competitions in Hong Kong, the time for making the vessels was mainly concentrated on the period between the Qingming Festival in April and the Dragon Boat Festival in June, during which three to four shipbuilders would spend about a month building just one dragon boat.
Tam pointed out that whether it is manufacturing fishing boats or dragon boats, each place has its own characteristics, adding that compared with other regions, the biggest difference is that the bows on the boats in Macau are more tapered.
In order to carry forward the traditional dragon boat culture, Tam opened classes to the general public to teach his trainees how to make dragon boat models in 2021, so that more young local people are able to gain a better understanding of the shipbuilding industry, which used to be one of Macau’s four major industries, as well as the culture and traditional manufacturing methods of dragon boats. He said: “If we don’t start to find ways to carry forward the traditions of making dragon boats and even shipbuilding, the industry will gradually be forgotten by the public.”
Tam revealed that he was planning to make a small-size dragon boat with eight seats later this year at his former shipyard.
Meanwhile, Shipbuilding Craft Culture Association Chairman Tam Chon Ip told The Macau Post Daily during the interview with his father – Tam Kam Chun – on Friday that the tradition of dragon boat racing is much older than the story about patriotic poet and politician Qu Yuan (340 BC – 278 BC), adding that anthropologists believe that the earliest races were a traditional ceremony related to celebrations—in the seasons of spring and summer, praying to the gods for having enough rain, avoiding plagues, and preventing floods.
Symbolically, a dragon boat represents a dragon, while the dragon is a legendary creature in Chinese culture from ancient times, he pointed out.
Teams compete in Macau International Dragon Boat Races in Nam Van Lake last Saturday. – Photos: Yuki Lei
Shipwright Tam Kam Chun (left) and his son, Shipbuilding Craft Culture Association Chairman Tam Chon Ip, pose with a dragon boat model after Friday’s interview with The Macau Post Daily at his former shipyard in Lai Chi Vun in Coloane.
A number of dragon boat models are on display during last month’s exhibition hosted by the Shipbuilding Craft Culture Association at the Macau Maritime Museum in Barra.
This photo taken on Friday shows Tam Kam Chun’s former shipyard called “Son Veng” in Coloane’s Lai Chi Vun Village.
This photo taken on Friday shows a dragon boat model.
