The Dragon Boat Festival (Duan Wu Festival) is a significant event in the Chinese calendar. Many Chinese people throughout the world celebrate the Festival with dragon boat racing and eating of rice dumplings. It commemorates the death of Qu Yuan, a Chinese poet and Minister in the state of Chu, who drowned himself in protest against a corrupt government in 277 BC. As the townspeople rowed out to save Qu Yuan, they threw rice dumplings into the sea and beat drums to keep scare the fish away and stop them from eating his body. More information about the story of Qu Yuan can be found at your local library and on the internet.
Members of the Whittlesea Chinese Association (WCA), the local Chinese community and residents of the City of Whittlesea, celebrated the 3rd Anniversary of WCA, Dragon Boat Festival and the 10th Anniversary of the Heritage Program, on Saturday night 6 June 2009 at the Lalor Senior Citizens Centre. Over 120 participants attended this festival at the centre.
Prior to this Festival, the Whittlesea Chinese Association, in partnership with the Yarra Plenty Regional Library, organised story-telling, a teen game night and children’s colouring competitions of a dragon boat at the Lalor Library. Ms Angela Lu, a bilingual volunteer of Lalor Library, told the story of Qu Yuan to children and their parents at the library, in both Mandarin and English. On the eve of the Festival, Lalor Library staff made the decision of winners of the teen game night. Competition prizes went to Kahurangi Rapana, Medwin Tomales and Hussein Al Mosaui. Humma Tafique, Jonathan Huynh, Sarah Dirani and Jessica Tan were the winners of colouring competition. The judges were Mr. Pisen Hong and Dr Keong Choong.
Mr. Yong arranged for Ms Helen Sartinas and Mrs. Weiguo Cosaitis, assisted by Mr. Tsebin Tchen, to be the Masters of Ceremonies for the Festival. Copies of the festival program in English and Mandarin were distributed. The festival night commenced with a glittering artistic show of belly dancing by the group Dantilla, led by Zabelle and with Princess Pamela as the special guest. Children from Abbotsford Primary School performed a very creative and wonderful short play demonstrating the story of Qu Yuan. Dr. Virginia Dods helped to organise the volunteers for the play and Nicholas Lang directed the play, with support from Kristel McNamara. Oscar Lang played the emperor and Thai Dang-Howell played Qu Yuan. The young narrator was Astrid Melton. Other children in the play were Edrick Daymond, Isabella McNamara, Madison Melton, Ingrid Melton and Josie Lang. Megan Harrington made all the beautiful fish costumes. Alwyn and Laurie Lewis wrote the script. In addition, the very talented and respected Aboriginal community leader, Uncle Reg Blow, performed a welcome ceremony with his didgeridoo.
As part of the festivities, Cr Frank Merlino, Mr. Yong and Jenny Mikakos MP gave their speeches. The speakers acknowledged the presence of Police Inspector Mark Doney, Leading Senior Constable Mr. Cameron McKenzie (Epping Police Station), Mr. Frank Besanko (Commander of MFB Northern Zone), Cr. Tran Siu (Deputy Mayor of Brimbank), Ivana Csar OAM and major sponsors of WCA. In his speech, Mr. Yong promoted his Friday night “Chinlish” radio show on 88.6 Plenty Valley FM and his support of the AFL Collingwood team.
Gwen Hawke (Whittlesea Historical Society) , Shelly Wang Wei, Weiguo Cosaitis, Lina Hassan, Wafa Karime and Arthur Yong joined in a multicultural fashion parade. Ms Sandy Tan (NMIT Preston Event Management student) coordinated the fashion parade. The wonderful multicultural choir, led by Sue Johnson, performed a song called “Life’s Too Short” based on the choir’s shared stories and life memories. Gordon and Shirley O’Rourke sang good old songs. They were “Everywhere You Go”, “Anytime” and “Dear Hearts and Gentle People”.
Arthur and special guests announced winners of competitions from Lalor Library children’s activities and 12 lucky door prizes.
Ms Cheng Sok Fan and Ms Adeline Seah demonstrated the making of rice dumplings. Mr. Zhi Qi Zhou performed the Chinese calligraphy of writing names. Mr. Pisen Hong performed drawing of pandas and Chinese calligraphy.
“Local residents of all ages and backgrounds and friends of the Association from different suburbs of Victoria came together and attended a variety of creative, entertaining and colorful festival activities, which promoted Chinese and non-Chinese culture and heritage in the City of Whittlesea,” said Mr. Arthur Yong, President of Whittlesea Chinese Association.
The Association acknowledged the major sponsors, including the City of Whittlesea, the Victorian Multicultural Commission, Westpac Bank, Mosaic Living (Northside Landsales), OzParty Hire, Woodland Waters and many others, as listed in the program. Mr. Yong thanked all sponsors, performers, participants, volunteers, friends of the Association and local residents from the City of Whittlesea for their support of the festival.
Published in 2012.
