Lion dance performers interact with participants during the opening ceremony of the Sydney Lunar New Year Dragon Boat Festival 2024 at Darling Harbour in Sydney, Australia, Feb. 16, 2024. (Xinhua/Ma Ping)

Competitive, social, and inclusive, the over 2,000-year-old traditional Chinese water sport dragon boating has been making a splash in the Southern Hemisphere, with Australia emerging as one of its most vibrant hubs worldwide.

As the pinnacle of Sydney's 16-day Year of Dragon celebrations, the new-look Dragon Boat Festival recently concluded its 41st edition in the metropolis' center -- Darling Harbour.

With the annual boating gala freshly extended into three days, more than 3,000 paddlers from home and abroad took to the water in various races, perfectly combining Chinese culture with Aussie traits to ring in the Lunar New Year.

For a sporting and multicultural nation like Australia, why has dragon boat racing been captivating people across different ages, genders, and cultural backgrounds, with some of them even taking "Eat. Sleep. Paddle" as their mantra? The answer may vary but also with shared elements.

"It's probably the best team sport you could ever possibly imagine. It's an individual sport as well. You can challenge yourself," Belinda Fowler, a paddler in her 40s, told Xinhua.

Kempsey, a town nestled in the Mid North Coast of New South Wales (NSW), is where Fowler resides, a long 350 kilometers from the bustling city of Sydney. While driving across the Kempsey Traffic Bridge, Fowler would often catch a glimpse of dragon boat training on the Macleay River.

"I used to think 'That looks really nice, and I'd like to do that one day.' I watched them for years but never really got the courage to do anything about it until we had a French exchange student stay with us for six months," Fowler recalled.

In 2017, Fowler made a foray into dragon boating while showing the student around their picturesque neighborhood.

"I will never forget the feeling. I still remember it was dusk and we were walking back after being out in the water for the first time. I was all jittery and shaky. I just couldn't believe that I found this sport. It was so cool," she said.

In Fowler's eye, dragon boating is a "high-performance sport" that can be challenging for even the most physically fit people to master. The water sport also has its social and fun side, where "everybody is dependent on everyone else to work their hardest, do their best, and huddle together."

"When you get competitive, you want to be training in the gym, going for runs, getting a paddle. There is always a pod of people who are doing these things as well together, building each other up, and encouraging each other," she said.

Dragon boating is not just about racing but also encompasses multiple cultural traditions. Thunderous drumbeats of lion dances sent shivers up Fowler's spine, and the eye-dotting ceremony stirred up a mix of emotions on the inside.

Having previously participated in a ceremony at Darling Harbour, Fowler still bore in mind the scene of all the boats coming together to the edge for the ritual and crews splashing water to each other.

"It was a really fun, amazing and emotional experience. You may think 'Oh, why would that be emotional?' It just is because you're experiencing something that's part of someone else's culture and that's really special to them," said the Aussie paddler.

Jon Hanlon, a Sydney-based acupuncturist and also fluent Mandarin speaker, had a different introduction to dragon boating compared to Fowler's.

After finishing his study in Chinese traditional medicine in Sydney, Hanlon relocated to the Chinese city of Guangzhou for seven years and worked in a private hospital.

"I had never heard of it before I moved there. I just had a couple of friends who were training in dragon boat," said Hanlon. With a natural inclination to outdoor sports, Hanlon joined a dragon club with a mixture of locals and foreigners.

At that time, he had a basic command of the Chinese language and was taking a Mandarin course at a university. But that didn't hinder him from honing skills in dragon boating.

"There were Chinese people and people from lots of different countries. The language we used mostly was English on the boat, but it was a mixture. You can learn a lot from watching people in dragon boating. Even if you don't understand everything that someone says, you can still follow what they're doing," said Hanlon.

Hanlon and his teammates competed in a diverse range of distances in China, as "it depended on how long was the river." Out of his love for the water sport, he also included the character "Tao" in his Chinese name, which means wave.

In January 2020, he came back to Sydney but didn't part ways with dragon boating. Since that, he has been paddling for Sloths, one of Sydney's premier clubs, and also representing the NSW and Australia in many major events.

"It makes me feel strong. And I like it because it is a team sport. So you're doing something that you can meet new people and have fun from doing the sport together," said Hanlon.

With more than 3,000 individual members and over 60 clubs, the NSW holds the majority of Australia's national dragon boating community, making up about 60 to 70 percent of the total.

"Like any sport, we lost membership during COVID. But dragon boating is one of the only sports that has recovered in its membership since COVID in NSW," said Dragon Boat New South Wales Director Chen Li.

"In terms of membership numbers for this season, we're back to where we were before COVID-19 and we're growing in our participation at events and also with our membership," she noted.

It was through a work event that Li's interest in dragon boating was first piqued. "I just joined to find something to do after work and to make new friends. I've been paddling since 2014," Li said.

For Li, dragon boating is probably "the most inclusive sport that you'll find, no matter what shape, size, age or culture you're from."

"There is always a spot for you in the boat. You can be 50 kilos or 60 kilos, you can be the drummer or sit on the front or the very back. Or you can be someone very strong and powerful and become a power engine in the middle of the boat," she noted.

Meanwhile, Fowler also observed that more juniors are joining in, and her son Sam is one of them.

"From my experience coming from a regional area, there are not many young people that were involved in the sport. Sam started paddling when the age was 12. He is 17 now and he has progressed through the ranks. He has been a regional paddler, a sweep. He's been in the state crew and now selected for Auroras, the national team," said Fowler.

She hoped that this little example would inspire more young generations to excel in the sport, which is not an insular one but values teamwork.

"Younger people are being attracted to the sport, particularly in metro areas where there is a higher density in the population, rather than in regional areas that tend to have an older demographic attracted to it. But I feel the dragon boat time is coming and people are starting to take a look at this fresh. It's a great sport," Fowler added.