Starting from scratch: Dragon Festival returning to Lake Phalen after four-year hiatus

A celebration of Asian culture that once drew thousands to the shores of St. Paul’s Lake Phalen each summer is back after a four-year hiatus.

Organizers say the Dragon Festival went dark due to board turnover, financial challenges and the anti-Asian climate during the pandemic. It’s back this year as a one-day festival with its traditional dragon boat races, lion dances and food vendors, along with new features, like a beer garden, to help offset the event’s cost.

Dragon Festival board vice chair Yao Yaj said organizers are starting from scratch as they line up vendors and racing teams for the July 13 event.

“It’s been gone for so long and people miss the Dragon Festival,” she said. “We really want to do it well.”

A pan-Asian celebration

St. Paul’s Dragon Festival was founded in 2000 to bring together the region’s many Asian immigrant communities. It’s traditionally been a two-day event, featuring food vendors, lion dances and other cultural activities.

A highlight of the festival is dragon boat racing, which sees two teams racing 40-foot boats decorated as dragons. Each boat is equipped with a drummer to keep rhythm for the rowers. In China, dragon boat races date back more than 2,000 years.

Minnesota has at least three dragon boat festivals; the Bemidji Dragon Boat Festival is held at the end of July and the Lake Superior Dragon Boat Festival in late August.

Syphaphone Jones, a former Dragon Festival board member, said she was excited when she heard news of Dragon Festival’s return, adding that it had been an outstanding question in the community.

“I get that question every year asking, ‘Are you coming back this year? Are you coming back this year?’” she said.

Jones, who stepped down in 2020, said she remembered Dragon Festival’s planning being an ordeal at times, one that usually began up to a full year before the event.

“It took a lot of time and dedication, but it was also something that everybody on that team was passionate about,” Jones said. “Seeing people come to the festivals every year, it was a great experience for us — it made it all worth it.”

Dragon Festival board members say the festival’s extended absence was due to board members leaving and, in one case dying, during the pandemic, resulting in a board that looks almost entirely different.

Without many of the connections to vendors and sponsors previous board members had, the new board had to start largely from scratch building new relationships needed for the festival to operate, said Maikhou Vang, board chair and the only member to sit on the previous board.

“It’s been challenging,” Vang said. “I’ve sent out emails to some of our old supporters and sponsors. Many of them have moved on to other jobs, some of them gave us new connections.”

Organizers have faced the assumption that because the festival has been around for decades, it has ample funding stockpiled — something they say is not the case.

In 2021, community advocate and Dragon Festival board member Kao Ly Ilean Her died of COVID-19 complications at age 52 . Her’s death not only left the board without an integral organizer, but also came as a blow to the festival’s finances. A bank account with funds for the festival belonging to Her was lost after board members were unable to transfer the account, Yaj said.

“Maikhou had to start from scratch to open up a new bank account, raise all the funds in there and create a new organization with the same name,” she said.

Yaj also said a spike in Asian hate crimes during the pandemic contributed to the festival’s delayed return.

“During the COVID years, there were a lot of Asian hate crimes, and a lot of fear and blaming that Asians were the cause of COVID,” Yaj said. “So the organizers didn’t feel safe to bring the Dragon Festival back that year or the following year, because there was just so much racial tension in America.”

As July 13 draws near, organizers said they are continuing to search for ways to offset the costs of the festival. Organizers hope to recoup some of the expenses by handling all bottled water sales themselves and, for the first time, the event will feature a beer garden hosted by Far East, a St. Paul restaurant and bar.

Racing teams gear up

Donna Jensen, a local racer, is counting the days to this year’s event on Lake Phalen.

She is a member of the St. Paul Dragon Divas , a dragon boat racing group of about 90 breast cancer survivors who practice on nearby Lake Gervais.

Jensen began dragon boat racing after her 2017 cancer diagnosis limited her ability to run.

“After my first time in the boat, I was hooked. I loved it,” she said.

The group’s ethos, on and off the water, is “one heart, one beat, one boat” — a reference to the 20-person teams padding in sync with their drummer.

“It’s been tremendously inspirational to our families and friends to see us out in the boat paddling,” she said, of the Dragon Divas. “For many, it’s the first time that they really understand that we’re healthy and we’re going to live.”

Dragon Festival on Lake Phalen

Date : Saturday, July 13

Time: 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Location: Phalen Regional Park, 1600 Phalen Drive, St. Paul

Cost: Free

More info: dragonfestival.org

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