Despite being in China for over a year, I had yet to experience one of the local festivals in my “home” region of Taizhou. Consequently I was very keen to attend the now internationally famous Qintong Boating Festival. The Qintong Boating Festival is held during Qingming Festival (around April 4-6) every year. The Qingming Festival (Clear and Bright Festival or Pure Brightness Festival) denotes a time for people to go outside and enjoy the greenery of springtime and also to tend to the graves of departed ones. Consequently a common English translation is Tomb Sweeping Day. However tomb-sweeping is definitely not on the agenda of this particular series of events. Last year I missed the opportunity to attend the reportedly most spectacular event in the festival, the opening ceremony, due to the fact that it
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