Taipei holds dragon boat championships to celebrate Duanwu Festival

The 2025 Taipei International Dragon Boat Championships were held in Taiwan from Friday to Sunday, celebrating this year's Dragon Boat Festival, which fell on Saturday.

Amid the thunderous beat of drums and enthusiastic cheers, contestants in the dragon boat championships powered through the Keelung River in Taipei, paddling with fierce determination to claim the lead.

The three-day competition drew 221 teams and over 5,000 athletes. Participants competed in men's, women's, and mixed divisions, racing in both large and small dragon boats, according to the organizer.

Before the race, the competitors energized themselves with spirited cheers. One of the racers Chen Hsueh-mei said that although her team lacks race experience and just received one month of training, they still enjoyed themselves in the event.

"We will play hard and enjoy this race," said Chen, the only racer who has some experience in the team.

"We are supper excited to be here, thrilled. We are coming from Okinawa, Japan, so we flew in yesterday, and we are just stoked to be here," said another racer named Pattran.

The Dragon Boat Festival, also known as Duanwu Festival, commemorates renowned Chinese patriotic poet Qu Yuan, who was also a minister of the State of Chu during the Warring States Period (475 B.C.-221 B.C.).

In addition to the dragon boat races, a rich array of cultural activities related to the festival were also held, including on-land dragon boat experiences and egg-balancing contests.

"I took part in the dribbling game and I did for 110 times. In my school, my classmates and teachers taught me stories about Qu Yuan," said a local child.

Taipei holds dragon boat championships to celebrate Duanwu Festival

China's 2026 box office revenue had surpassed 14 billion yuan (about 2.06 billion U.S. dollars) as of Tuesday, fueled by a diverse array of hit movies and consumption promotion campaigns.

The film industry got off to a strong start during the Spring Festival holiday. "Pegasus 3," the latest installment in director Han Han's racing comedy franchise, amassed over 4 billion yuan and remains the year's top grossing film so far.

Released during the Qingming Festival, the comedy drama "It's OK" focused on a mother-daughter bond and resonated strongly with young women, topping April's box office chart with more than 160 million yuan in ticket sales.

During the just concluded May Day holiday, "Dear You," a low budget film in the Chaoshan (Teochew) dialect featuring an almost entirely first-time cast, became one of China's biggest cinematic surprises of 2026. As the highest rated domestic release so far this year, the tear-jerking drama had raked in over 180 million yuan as of Wednesday afternoon.

The five-day May Day holiday, a key period for movie-going, drew more than 20.8 million people to cinemas, a 10 percent jump from a year ago, while the number of screenings rose 2 percent to nearly 2.4 million.

Bolstered by the "2026 China Film Consumption Year" and "China Travel with Chinese Films" initiatives, cinema spending has become a major driver of cultural and tourism consumption. The entire film industry chain has generated over 220 billion yuan in output value since January.

China's 2026 box office surpasses 14 bln yuan