Posted by Terence McManus on October 15, 1997 at 10:10:31:
In Reply to: Re: The Dragon Festival? posted by Adam Quinan on October 14, 1997 at 22:23:31:
You're quite right: what you describe is the Festival at Tuen Ng, although the boat races are only part of the traditional celebrations and seem to have become "an end in themselves". My guess was that AR invented a local festival but that references to the Dragon Boat Festival in his background research suggested a Dragon Festival. For other reasons I think that Misee Lee is set in the northern summer so AR would have set the date of his festival at or around the date of Tuen Ng. This is only a guess and I'm quite prepared to have it overturned by anybody with access to information not in AR's books or the published letters.
There are local festivals in China, some restricted to a single island community, so it would be reasonable for AR to invent one to help the plot along.