'Bringing people together'

Aric Lu, a 28-year-old bioengineering PhD student, said many people looked forward to the race.

"It's one of the few times where the entire dragon boat community in Boston comes together," he said. "It's always great to paddle, meet new people and have a lot of fun."

He said dragon boating in particular is "one of those things that brings a lot of people together and kind of bridges some of those gaps that sometimes occur".

"And it's also just another opportunity for a lot of people from a lot of different cultures to come together and work together and, you know, participate in something like this," Lu said.

At the festival, Chinese students and dragon boat alumni teams proudly represent their colleges, while also promoting Chinese traditions and culture.

"We are very proud to represent our school and our region," Zhang Lida, from the Sun Yat-Sen University team, said. She said dragon boat racing is especially popular and more intense in South China.

"We are so proud of this event, and we invited all of our friends and tell them where the event came from. We told them the history of the tradition," Wang Yongtao of the Sun Yat-Sen team said.

Cao Yajun, 24, of the Peking University Alumni Association, said the races and cultural events at the festival are good ways of promoting this traditional Chinese culture.

"It's really exciting, really unites all the people and all the members of the alumni of our university," he said. "I feel a strong, emotional feeling from the team."

The PKU alumni team, Dreamega, finished first in its division.

Shirley Shen, from the Tsinghua Alumni Association team, said she has participated in the event for seven years, and said people are passionate about joining the team with school pride and sporting spirit.

The Tsinghua team finished third.

"I'm so very proud. I'm proud to express our culture and our tradition, especially to our younger generation as well," she said.

"It's a precious opportunity for us to join a team, while we work together as adults but we can compete like a child."