Chinese New Year, Continued – Lion Dance
OK, now we’re really gearing up for the holiday. The crowds at the malls are bigger, and outside the new mall near us they’ve got a lion dance stage all set up. I tried to post video of this, but it wouldn’t play, alas. So I’ll paste in a link to a great lion dance in China at the end of the post.
The lion is two young guys under a costume; the front man holds the mask and makes the eyes wink and the ears wiggle. The man behind him periodically holds him up when the lion rears or when it leaps from one platform to another. These guys are amazing – they’re so coordinated that the lion can jump around, spin 360 degrees (that means one guy is holding the other one up and spinning on one foot), use its hind leg to scratch its back and other fun things, all on plates erected on poles (sturdy, I hope), up high where everyone can see it.
And it’s not just the local mall that’s sponsoring the show; at every MRT stop Saturday we could hear more lion dance drums banging away. It’s all over the place. Let festivity be unbounded! Let a thousand lions dance! Let two thousand young men find seasonal employment!
Here’s the link to the Xi’an lion dance. (Just click on the word, “link.”) They’ve cleverly substituted a nice Chinese pop song for the ear-shattering drums and cymbals that traditionally accompany the dance, so you’ll miss the huge uproar. But it’s great anyway. Bon Appetite!