Marsha Maung:: Freelance graphic designer and writer

Forget the mandarin oranges, they stink up a car or lift. Forget the ang pows, they’re nothing but $2 worth of red paper meant to be thrown away, anyway. Forget about the cakes and cookies, they make you fat.

 

Now, lion dances…. THAT’s what Chinese New Year is all about. I don’t know whether I’ve written about lion dances before or not…like last Chinese New Year but every year, they awe me. These young blokes dressed in tight shirts, long baggy pants looking all prancy and loose are something. They’re really something.

 

The Lion Dance dates as far back as the Ching and Haan Dynasties and they are performed to bring ward off the evil, bring good luck, prosperity, health and happiness to the people who gather around to ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ at them. I have to admit that I am one of those who gasp when they perform something tricky. I am also one of those who clap loudly and cheer like a kid when their leap is as high as a two-storey building! No kidding. I mean, my sister-in-law was telling me that last year, the front guy into the air and the head of the lion hit the bottom of the second floor bridge and both fell off the poles. But thanks to their Kung-Fu training, they know, better than anyone else, how to FALL properly.

 

The grace and agility of those lion dancers are absolutely magnificent. There’s nothing easy about the way they leap from one pole to another, balancing like a ballerina (only more masculine, rougher and faster) crouch and STILL remembering to move those ears and eyes. A lion dance is more than just a display of agility and strength. It’s drama too. The lions express fear, apprehension, anxiety, happiness, jubilance and anger. The lion dancers skillfully and artfully control the lion’s actions without forgetting where to jump to next.

 

Many people were busy throwing ang pows at the lions and picking up mandarins when I saw a few of the troop members come up with extra boxes of mandarins behind the dancer on the back. They were running out of mandarins to throw out. So, these members pass the oranges to the back person and the back person passes it on to the front person. And the front person throws the mandarins out of the lion’s mouth!

 

And did you know that there are different types of lion dances? I didn’t but I DID notice that some lions are different.

<the Southern Lion> 

 

The Southern Lion Dance and the Northern Lion Dance. I personally like the Southern Lion Dance better. Although it’s not more realistic but because of the way the lion is shaped and designed (with as few restrictions to movement as possible), the performance is always more amazing! The Southern Lion may ‘look’ more realistic (I don’t know about that – I’ve never SEEN a dragon before, have I?) but the Northern Lion merely prances around and is often have limited capabilities. And they’re just not as pretty.

 

 <To the right, the Northern Lion>

My favorite part of the whole Lion Dance performance is usually the time when the Lion is trying to grab (albeit, eat) the choy cheng. That’s the payment for the lion dance, by the way. For those who are unfamiliar, among all those poles, one of them has some vegetables and red packet containing money (payment for the performance) in it. The Lion will take the payment by ‘eating’ the vegetable (and the payment). Hee hee! But that’s not what I am interested in. I am more intrigued by the drama that leads to the ‘eating’. The Lion will climb the poles and see the ‘chow cheng’. And then approaches the ‘choy cheng’ very carefully and apprehensively. Many times, the lion will stop and look around, wonder if it’s safe or not to take the ‘choy cheng’. It will hesitate, look around, turn around, jump back, come forward again…etc, just to be sure that the ‘choy cheng’ is safe to take. And then the Lion will perform a very special ‘3 star’ routine to be sure that no one is there to take the choy cheng from it, ward off others who may be nearby and then grab the ‘choy cheng’.

 

Such drama. I love it!! There’s one at my new condo tomorrow. I won’t miss it for the world.