On May 4, residents in Liede village began to paint dragon boats in preparation for the upcoming dragon boat competition.

Li Weishi, a resident in Liede village, said that Liede dragon boats are mainly depicted as red dragons, flower dragons or five-colored dragons. Before each village determines its own dragon boat design, they have to go to their respective temples to worship their god to determine the boat's focal colors.

Liede village has a long history of fruit cultivation and is known as the hometown of fruit. Some of the dragon boats are painted with Lingnan (Guangdong and the nearby provinces in southeastern China) fruits, such as lychees, pomegranates, water chestnuts, lotus roots and so on. In addition, it is decorated with colorful designs such as crabapples and lotus flowers.

In Liede, the villagers will first clean and dry the boats and later remove their previous designs. Then the dragon boats will receive their base colors to cover any leftover patterns. After each layer of paint, people let the boat dry before moving on to the next layer. This step will be repeated three times.

Li Zhifeng, leader of the Liede dragon boat team, said that the painting progress can also be affected by the weather and water levels. Li went on to explain that it can take up to a week to paint a dragon boat completely.

Every year after the Dragon Boat Festival, the boats will be left in the pond, where their paint will fade. Before the next festival, the process will begin again and the dragon boats will be repainted to look as good as new.

A man paints a dragon boat. [Photo/WeChat account: tianhefabu]