Travel Day

Yesterday was the school's travel day for Chinese New Year, meaning we went out beyond the city limits to do lion dancing for restaurants that had scheduled them. It's a little more relaxed than the big Chinatown celebration, the team is smaller so sifu has fewer people to manage. For us students who are new to lion dancing, it's a good day to get experience because it's much less hectic and there's time to plan who is under the lions and what we will do at each location.

This was the first year I actually did the "eating" part at a couple locations. Eating is very ritualized so it has to be done correctly; we practice it at training sessions even if we're not yet ready to do the performances. There are two items that are the most important, the oranges and the greens (or chang). Always eat the oranges first and the greens last. Under the greens (usually lettuce) is the lucky red envelope. In between these items can be a host of other things. For example, at one supermarket our lions "ate" oranges, cookies, candies, grapefruit, a six-pack of soda, and finally celery and lettuce. Last year the seafood department of a store fed the lion a fish. And I recall one restaurant in Orlando that puts either a live lobster or live crab over the red envelope.

The lion dancing personal gear that I listed below came in handy at the last location we did. I was just grabbing the greens when the restaurant owner lit the firecrackers and threw them right on top of my boot. So, firecrackers going off everywhere. And I couldn't just go "aaahhhh" and kick the strand back into the restaurant, or drop the head of lettuce, I had to shred it and spread the lettuce out and keep dancing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwqa321Fmew&NR

I found this video on YouTube of the Wah Lum Temple demo team (Orlando) lion dancing last year at China Garden. (I lived in the apartments right behind China Garden back when I started studying kung fu, so -- whatever.) It's a good illustration of doing the lion dancing inside restaurants. You can see the guides for each team making sure the lions don't hit the tables or customers, and helping the lions back out of the restaurant.

Things always get a bit confusing which is why every position on the team is important, even if it's just banging the cymbals together.

Happy Year of the Pig!