Dragon Boat Festival

This weekend was the annual Dragon Boat Festival, held in Flushing Meadows Park, Queens. While the festival has a complex history and purpose in China, in New York it's mostly an excuse to race dragon boats --- long, low canoes with onboard drummers setting the pace --- and put on various cultural and culinary events pertaining to China in general and Hong Kong in particular. We actually found the dragon boat races somewhat difficult to follow, but we had no trouble paying attention to the martial arts demonstrations, especially when people from the audience got to come up and try cracking the ribs of a surprisingly non-badass–looking kungfu master. Lesson of the day: do not underestimate the rib strength of non-badass–looking kungfu masters.