Commonly known as Lion Dance, “Dancing the Lion” (舞狮) is quite a popular culture in Chinese society. Besides Chinese New Year, it is also performed in some grand events like starting a business or some festive celebration etc.
It’s known to have been introduced to South East Asia through Chin Woo Association circa 1922.
There are two types of Lion Dance, thus two types of lions. One is the northern lion, characterized by its long hair and more ugly looking. It’s supposed to be some guardian animal. The other type is the southern lion, better looking, which is supposed to be the monster ‘Nian’.
Lion Dance is an art. From the rhythm of the drums and gongs to the steps of the lion, everything is synchronised. If you observe carefully, you can actually see the lions scratching itself, hop, somersault, bow, look back, turn around etc in a very active manner, just like a naughty puppy. Lion Dance also involves display of emotion including angriness, shy, afraid, sorrow etc. Some well trained performers can even perform more difficult stunts, like the one you see in the video above, flipping on some pillars called 梅花桩 or plum pillars.
If you understand mandarin, you can visit this site to understand more about Lion Dance.
Many years ago, during Chinese New Year, we had lorries of lions from some lion-dance club coming house to house to perform lion dance. Upon hearing the drums and gongs, father would take out his ladder to hang some vegetable, Mandarin orange and angpow at the edge of the roof. It used to cost each household 20 to 50 ringgit for some 5-minutes performance, which includes the lion paying respect to the ancestors’ pedestal etc. Loud fire crackers will be lit to signify scaring away the Nian monster and welcoming a new year.
Most Chinese celebrating Chinese New Year will open their front gates and let the lion in to bestow good fortune and peace upon them. Those who don’t celebrate will also follow the lion dance team to watch.
Rich people living in big big bungalows would have to pay more for them to perform longer and make the angpow more difficult to get (like hanging it higher). Once I saw my dad’s friend laid out some markings on the ground, it was called a 七星阵 or seven-star-trap, and the TWO lions had to perform accordingly. It was TEH FUN.
Few years ago, things started getting expensive. They started to demand more money before they perform. The price came up to a hundred to two hundred ringgits, sometimes even more. Thus, less people could afford and less people would open their gates or allow them to perform.
Since the banning of loud fire crackers by the government, things took a sharp turn downhill. I wonder if they are starting to discourage house-to-house lion dance too.
These days, we could no longer see lion dance lorry tearing down the street with its loud drums and gongs anymore. Instead, we had to go to shopping complexes to witness the lion dance at some scheduled time.
Will the lions ever return to the people in the future?
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