Yuancun Dragon Boat Rowing

Name and category

According to the public notice of January 2024, Yuancun Dragon Boat Rowing is one of the new inscriptions in the recommended list for the fourth batch of district-level intangible cultural heritage items, in the traditional dance category; its recommended guardian is the Dongping Subdistrict Culture and Sports Station and the reporting area is Dongping Subdistrict. The item title carries the name Yuancun, and the place of transmission is in the Yuancun area of Dongping Subdistrict.

The notice uses the wording rendered here as "rowing a dragon boat" and not the wording used for dragon-boat racing. This entry follows the wording of the notice and does not merge the item with names that use other wording.

Form and programme

According to a 2026 Nanjing Morning Post report, Yuancun Dragon Boat Rowing is a traditional folk dance whose prop is a "land boat", imitating rowing on dry ground, performed mostly at the New Year and other festivals. Its main roles are the painted-face boatman, the boat woman and the punt-pole, with four more on gongs, drums and cymbals; its basic routines include launching the boat, crossing the bridge, opening the four gates and paying homage to the four directions; and its words and tunes are chiefly folk songs, ballads and folk ditties.

The report says that, after reform, the performance is done with five small land boats in a group, and has taken in the fishing drum, square dancing and rhythmic storytelling, with new lyrics written around Dongping Lake, Dajin Mountain and other local features. The report also says the item can be traced back at least to the early Republican period, over a century ago.

Difference from dragon-boat racing

This item is a land-boat performance on dry ground and is not the same thing as the dragon-boat racing on water at the Dragon Boat Festival recorded in this site's entry on dragon-boat racing in Lishui. A local-history post on Lishui 114 says that this kind of "land boat" was brought to Lishui by migrants of the late Qing from Guangshan and Luoshan in Henan and Macheng and Luotian in Hubei, accompanied by gongs and drums, sung as it moved, and still sung in the migrants' speech; this is a folk account, not corroborated by an official or academic source here, and remains to be verified.

Transmission and safeguarding

According to the 2026 Nanjing Morning Post report, the item was revived after Yuan Shanhua, a native of Yuancun whose family has practised the craft for four generations, returned from Beijing in 2018: she went from door to door, formed a boat team of more than 20 people, sought support from the district culture and tourism bureau and the subdistrict, and applied for district-level ICH status. The report says the team performs more than 100 times a year. The bearer's name and record are the report's account; official recognition follows the district-level list of ICH bearers.

Points in doubt

First, "traceable at least to the early Republican period", "over a century" and "more than 100 performances a year" are all the report's figures.

Second, the account that the craft was brought from Henan and Hubei by late-Qing migrants appears only in a forum local-history post; it is a folk account with no official or academic corroboration found here, and is not written as fact.

Third, the size of the land boat, the names making up the team, and the content of the work chants and gong-and-drum accompaniment are not given in the report and remain to be added.

Fourth, the item is not on the list of eight bearers in the fourth-batch public notice; its representative bearer awaits confirmation in a district list.

Fifth, this library searched the full texts of the five Lishui County Gazetteers it holds and found no passage on dragon boats or land boats.