Chinese students dominate dragon boat race

A group of students won 2^nd place at the Texas Annual Regatta on October 19, 2014. The students were gathered by Ms. Tsai in their Chinese classes the preceding weeks.

The International Dragon Boat Regatta has been held every year for the past 11 years. This year’s proceeds were donated to men and women who are survivors of Breast Cancer. According to sophomore competitor Merrilyn Nie, the event had many schools that attended and hundreds of competitors.

“Practice was exhausting because we practiced the Saturday before the event and after school,” Nie said. “We did pushups because rowing is a lot of work.”

The team captain was junior Teresa Datta who was responsible for gathering enough people, making sure they knew all the information and getting her team prepared for competition.

“So, I had done the dragon boat race a couple years ago with another team,” Datta said. “This year the organizer contacted me and said they have empty spaces. Originally, I wasn’t going to do it but I thought, ‘oh this could be fun.’ I definitely got help from a bunch of people which was nice.”

Ms. Tsai, the levels one and three Chinese teacher, heard about the regatta from the parents of some of her students.

“This is the first time we’ve done it [dragon boat racing] and the students did great,” Tsai said.

Tsai intends on sending more students next year to compete. In fact, this is likely to become an annual thing.

“I’m a junior right now so I only have one more year,” Datta said. “To be honest, I definitely want to do it again and pass the baton to another junior so they can continue the tradition. The amount of spirit was awesome. I was pretty proud because nobody had ever rowed before and we did so well in the competition.”