Lion Dance

The holiday lasts for 15 days and during that time there is a lot of celebrating in KL. I took the pictures below at the American Association’s Lion Dance, but we saw lion dances all over town because it’s a ritual done to bring good luck (the Chinese especially hope for longevity and prosperity) into people’s lives.

At the AAM we had a Chinese buffet lunch and Tim Tan, the husband of the General Manager, explained Chinese New Year traditions, including the very sticky rice that is left as an offering for the kitchen god. The kitchen god makes a report on each family’s behavior over the year and the sticky rice is something like very chewy caramels, so that the kitchen god’s mouth will be stuck shut and won’t be able to say much. We all participated in tossing the reunion salad. First, the ingredients went into a bowl in the proper order as instructed (raw fish last) and then the salad was tossed with chopsticks as high in the air as possible, but without spilling, to keep all the good luck! (I think our table lost a little bit.)

The lion dance is performed by two young men in one lion suit. One person manipulates the head, complete with blinking eyes, flicking ears, and a panting mouth, while his feet are the 2 front feet of the lion. The second person is the back end of the lion, which would be an easier job except there is a lot of lifting of the front end up in the air and at more sophisticated performances, the head is sometimes lower than the back feet. Also the tail wags.

The dance is made up of movements like lifting a bent knee and kicking the foot back and forth for a pawing motion. This was one of the incredible parts of the lion dance for me – the movements aren’t movements a human imitating an animal would make. Instead, it’s more like puppeteering where big movements or pulling a string make a larger-than-life effect that only someone standing back a distance watching thinks "that’s exactly what a lion would do."

There are two types of lion dances. One takes place about 8 to 10 feet up above the ground on a long, narrow obstacle course made up of pairs of stilts. The lions get up onto the stilts by jumping (their hands are otherwise occupied), front and back legs at the same time. They jump forward and around the obstacle course, sometimes over large distances and managing to jump at the same time by staying with the beating of a drum, cymbals and a gong. A lull in the music and the stillness of the lion usually precipitated a big move. At the end of the dance the lion unties a scroll wishing everyone a happy new year and throws some salad. One of the more sophisticated lion dances we saw had 2 lions up on the obstacle course, and they traded places back and forth.

The second type of lion dance takes place on the ground and is largely made up of the interaction between 2 lions. They reminded me of Gaby and Bear especially when snuggling nose to nose. Whoever designed the lion dance must have watched animals playing. At the end, the lions present a formal salad on a plate to the guest of honor.

The AAM building was properly blessed by two lions, which went in and out headfirst. The dance troupe’s drummers gave a featured demonstration and there was a flag show exactly like what you’d see with the marching band at half time on the football field.