Made in Macao | Swimming in ‘Dragon Boat Water’

Jenny Lao-Phillips

I have written a lot about stories and legends relating to the coming Tuen Ng Festival, better known as the Dragon Boat Festival, which is tomorrow, Friday, 7 June. However, as I was going through my writings, I had missed one important custom that we used to practice when I was young. That is swimming in the “Dragon Boat Water.” Although the direct translation of the term is “swimming in the Dragon Boat Water,” it actually does not really require swimming. The custom is merely to get into the water on Dragon Boat Day.

Every year at Tuen Ng Festival we are already in the summer season, so it is understandable that it is also swimming season. But why do we specifically have to go swimming during Tuen Ng Festival? And what is considered “Dragon Boat Water”?

First, can you guess why we have to swim in Dragon Boat Water? Of course, the superstition is that Dragon Boat Water can help wash away bad luck. We Chinese have a strong tradition of relating most of our customs to gaining good luck or preventing bad luck. But there is also a belief that swimming in Dragon Boat Water can heal skin diseases. I read somewhere that it actually has a scientific foundation. Especially in the South China Sea, during the time of June the water level is higher, diluting the saltiness of the sea water. So the quality of the water during this period of time used to be good for the skin and may heal some simple skin diseases. However, that was before our beaches in Macau were seriously polluted. Nowadays, we may need to beware of getting skin problems when swimming in the polluted ocean. So where should we swim this Friday to wash away bad luck?

Technically, getting into a swimming pool does not fulfill the practice. To qualify as Dragon Boat Water, the basic assumption is of course that dragon boats have passed through the body of water: usually the river or sea in most parts of China. In Macau, before the sea was reclaimed into land and lakes, the dragon boat race was held in the sea, so the whole sea surrounding Macau was considered Dragon Boat Water. Every Tuen Ng Festival, the first thing that comes to my mind reminiscing over a long-gone swimming area.

When I was a kid, the most crowded place on Tuen Ng Festival was a swimming area somewhere around Avenida da Amizade. It disappeared so many years ago, I cannot even recall its exact location. I have the fading memory of a small bamboo-built structure where we left our clothes and belongings and just jumped into the water. For sunbathing, one needed to swim out to a large floating board some two hundred meters away from the bamboo structure. Those who did not swim well would have to go to the two beaches in Coloane, just to dip in the water. Going to Hac Sa Beach or Cheok Wan Beach was not as easy as it is nowadays. Coloane was considered very far away at the time, because not many people had cars and buses were not frequent. That is why the beaches were not as crowded.

Over the years, as the population increases and the swimming area in Amizade has disappeared, we have moved to swimming pools. The truth is we can no longer swim in actual Dragon Boat Water, which is now a lake not fit for swimming, so any water will do, I guess. This may or may not still wash away bad luck, but surely will not heal skin diseases.