Hundreds of boats racing during the Boat Festival.（photo by Yan Yuming）

On April 6, the 2026 Taizhou Jiangyan Qintong Boat Festival was held at Qinhu National Wetland Park. Vividly depicted as “thousands of oars stir Qinhu Lake alive, hundreds of boats race with the spring tide”, the spectacular scene offered tens of thousands of Chinese and foreign tourists an engaging experience of folk custom.

Qintong Boat Festival is a national intangible cultural heritage, hailed as “the world’s largest waterborne temple fair”. Pivoting on the theme “A Healthy City, Vibrant Jiangyan”, the event takes the signature Qinhu IP “Qin the Little Deer” guiding students on a tour of their hometown Jiangyan as its main storyline. The whole story has five chapters: “Trace Back”, “Carry Forward”, “Pray for Blessings”, “Compete for Glory”, and “Pass on Good Fortune”. Through immersive situational performances, tourists on-site and viewers online may feast their eye and ear on the unique charm of the water town that showcases folk traditions and the city’s cultural confidence.

On the expansive waters of Qinhu Lake, the audience’s eyes are fixing on the exquisitely crafted tribute boats, magnificent pole boats, delicate and agile rowing boats, high-spirited dragon boats, and good wishes-laden blessing boats. The most exciting highlight is the boat race, which features 20 rowing boats, 68 pole boats, and 27 dragon boats. Competing in batches, the boats engage in fierce contests as drumbeats and gongs thunder through the air, while cheers from the shore swell like rolling tides. The 1.5 km-long Qinhu Lake turns into a sea of joy.

As a flagship event hosted by the Suchao (Jiangsu City Football League) Champion City, the 2026 Qintong Boat Festival teems with Suchao elements. “Waterborne Suchao: Rowing with Oars Held High”, the eye-catching slogan is emblazoned on the hull of the central theme boat perched in the middle of the lake. Additionally, a cuju (ancient Chinese football) challenge invites two players from the 2025 Suchao champion Taizhou Team to serve as captains and interact with the audience. Zhou Gaoping, Taizhou Team’s head coach, strikes the gong to officially launch the boat race, and the cheer-leading squad of Xiangtai Football Fan Club takes the stage to roar their support for the participants.

This year’s boat race boasts a more youthful and diverse lineup of participants. In addition to representative teams from communities, government departments and state-owned enterprises in towns and sub-districts of Jiangyan District, students from numerous universities across and beyond Jiangsu, as well as foreign friends, have actively joined in. A total of 15 teams from 12 universities, including local ones in Taizhou, totaling nearly 400 members, are competing in pole boat and dragon boat races respectively, infusing youthful vitality into this traditional folk custom.