Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 25 teams will com­pete in var­i­ous cat­e­gories when Chi­nese Bi­cen­ten­ni­al Lim­it­ed hosts its an­nu­al Drag­on Boat Fes­ti­val on Oc­to­ber 12 at the west­ern end of Chagville, Ch­aguara­mas (next to the Mil­i­tary Mu­se­um) from 9 am - 4 pm.

This year, the Em­bassy of the Peo­ple's Re­pub­lic of Chi­na, the Con­fu­cius Cen­tre and lo­cal Chi­nese As­so­ci­a­tions will al­so par­tic­i­pate. Eight busi­ness per­sons from Pana­ma will come to Trinidad to view the drag­on boat fes­ti­val, as they plan to start their own fes­ti­val in the com­ing year.

Pa­trons can en­joy tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese cul­tur­al per­for­mances in­clud­ing au­then­tic mar­tial arts per­for­mances as well as the li­on and drag­on dances and ren­di­tions by the T&T Chi­nese Steel En­sem­ble. Drinks and Chi­nese food will be on sale, while ad­mis­sion is free and se­cured park­ing is avail­able.

Drag­on boat rac­ing orig­i­nat­ed in Chi­na over 2000 years ago. To­day, drag­on boat rac­ing takes place all over the world in­clud­ing Asia, Eu­rope, Africa, North Amer­i­ca and Aus­tralia.

In 2006, Chi­nese Bi­cen­ten­ni­al Lim­it­ed (CBL) was es­tab­lished to or­ga­nize a se­ries of events to com­mem­o­rate the ar­rival of the first Chi­nese per­sons in T&T. The sig­na­ture event of the in­au­gur­al cel­e­bra­tions was the in­tro­duc­tion of drag­on boat rac­ing.

Over the years, the sport of drag­on boat rac­ing has grown in pop­u­lar­i­ty and now at­tracts a wide cross sec­tion of the pop­u­la­tion. Teams from T&T have com­pet­ed in sev­er­al events over­seas and have per­formed ex­cep­tion­al­ly well.