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Dragon Boat Racing

Well, I haven't posted for a while, so I had a quick virtual riffle through the photos to see what I could come up with. A few weeks ago we went to a dragon boat/kite flying/Chinese culture festival, which wasn't a huge affair, but all the bright colours were good for photographs.






Chinese lanterns, of course.

These are actually Aztec dancers. What the Aztecs have to do with a Chinese festival we couldn't guess, nor did we ever discover. I suspect if you turn up in a fancy enough costume they let you in.

One of the four dragon boats. Any group or workplace could register a dragon boat team, and they competed throughout the day. A lady we talked to said they only got about an hour to practise, so it was a good thing each boat had a competent steerer!

Launching a kite.

Formation flying. My stunt kite died its death a long time ago owing to the nose hitting the ground many times too often, but seeing this made me itch to have kite strings in my hands again.

WHATAKITE!

The Cambodian stall. See what I mean about fancy costumes?

A pretty parade of parasols.

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