Living life in the Land of the Rising Sun: May 2016

Every year during Golden Week, the city of Naha hosts a three day festival called the Naha Hari Festival. It's held at Naha port and has a carnival like feel with food and game booths and live entertainment. Dragon boat races are held in several locations around Okinawa but the Naha Hari is the largest race on the island. I was fortunate to be able to attend this year's festival with my friend, Leslie. One of our mutual friends was on the Kadena Air Force Shogun Women's Dragon Boat team. They were racing against two other women's teams for the Army and Navy. Erin has been practicing with her team since January with several practices each week of intense rowing. I was very happy we got to watch her race.

The Dragon boat front artwork

The steering team

The Dragon Boat races in Naha have larger more colorful boats than many of the other festivals on the island. The boats are painted with bright colored dragon heads in the front and dragon tails on the back. They hold a 32 person rowing team. Three boats are raced in each round. Each team strives to be the first to the finish line and also have a fast time so they rank high in the overall race statistics. A person with a drum usually stands at the front of the boat to set the pace for the rowers. He/she will play a rhythmic beat in an effort to keep the rowers in sync with each other as well as keep them moving quickly. There were several people in the middle of the boat shouting at the rowers to motivate them to keep digging in unison as a team. At the back of the boat is a two-person steering team and they use a long handled paddle to keep the boat in their lanes as well as direct the boats at each of the turns around the half-point buoys. I was told that each team doesn't know who will be steering their boat until race day. They say the steering team plays a vital part in the speed of the race because time can be either made up or wasted in the turn phase of the race.

Fun-loving Dancing Man

The Americans had several teams racing this year. There were men's and women's teams from each of the military branches there and some Americans raced on a few of the Japanese teams. The Women's dragon boat race was scheduled for 12:30. We weren't sure what to expect as far as traffic coming into the port so we got an early 9:45 start. We managed to find parking easily and had several hours to walk through the carnival booths, watch some of the entertainment and have our lunch. We enjoyed watching a children's musical show before lunch. There was a man that kept coming to the front aisle to dance to their songs. He was quite entertaining to watch. He seemed like a guy who enjoys life and enjoys having fun. I couldn't help taking a lot of pictures of him and once he spotted my camera he seemed to step up his dance routine and would smile in my direction. Some of the little girls in their kimonos were quite cute too.

We settled on yakisoba for lunch but each bought from a different vendor. My vendor had a man wearing a fish head that loved to pose for pictures so, of course, we had to take pictures with him to remember the day. After the race we had a shaved ice cream concoction that was quite refreshing on the hot day. Neither of us remembered to bring sunscreen but were able to find a lady willing to share hers with us. The weather was supposed to be rainy and we'd not expected to need it.

Fish-face Food Vendor

The Close Finish of the Women's Race

When we first arrived at the festival, we watched one of the early races to determine where the best photo-taking spot would be. For this race we stood at the starting point but we found that it was difficult to see the turning point of the race. For the other races we opted to station ourselves at the mid-point so we could easily see both the start and turn of the race. The women's race was equally matched because it was a close race. It was hard to tell who crossed the finish line first but I was very excited when they announced that our friend's Air Force Shogun Women's team won their race. I know how hard Erin worked to be on the team and so it was pretty cool to see her excitement at the end of the race when she found her family. I happened to get to them at the perfect time to catch a few shots of them celebrating the win. Those turned out to be my favorite photos of the day. It was a great way to experience my first dragon boat race when the team I was rooting for won. Erin said that they beat all the other women's teams and came in 4th out of 42 competing teams.

As promised here are some of my favorite pictures from the race. Of course, true to my photographer self, I have many more pictures than you'll see here but you might be able to find a few more on Facebook if you're interested. Hope you enjoy experiencing a little bit of Dragon boat racing through my pictures.