Lucky Chinese New Year Lion Visit

According to traditional Chinese belief, the lion signifies courage, stability and superiority. The lion’s dance is performed to chase away ghosts and evil spirits, and since the monsters, ghosts, evil spirits and giants like Nian are afraid of loud noises, the dance has become a natural complement to the fire crackers' noise. Clashing cymbals, a gong and drums usually accompany this lively scene.

The lion’s every movement has a specific musical rhythm. The music follows the moves of the lion, the drum follows the lion, the cymbals and the gong follow the drum player. Throughout the performance, the Lion will mimic various moods and demonstrate similar physical gestures allowing the Lion to look life-like.

The lion dance combines art, history and kung fu moves. Normally the performers are kung fu practitioners, and a group of Lion Dancers consist of about 10 people.

Lion dances now take place during the first few days of the Chinese New Year. The dance of a Lion is preformed by two performers, one at the head of the lion, one at the tail of the lion. The head of the lion is made out of papier mâché and the nearly constant twinkle and movement of the lion’s eyelids as well as the movement of the head and mouth are supposed to enhance the lion’s vitality and longevity, while the tail of the lion sweeps away bad fortune and unpleasant things from last year.

A mirror is attached to the head of the lion. Mirrors are believed to expel negative energy, evil and bad spirits, since negative energy would be reflected backwards, evil spirit would be frightened by their own appearance when looking into the mirror and hence would disappear. One horn is attached to the lion’s forehead.

The dramatic climax of the Lion Dance is the "Cai Qing" or 'Picking the Green'. The green here refers to vegetable leaves which are tied to a piece of string which also has a red packet attached containing money. The string is hung above the door of the business, shop (or classroom), and the lion 'eats' both, the leaves and the red packet. Lying on the floor the leaves are 'chewed' by the lion while the musicians play a dramatic rolling crescendo. The lull is broken as the lion explodes back into activity, spitting out the leaves. This is a symbolic act of blessing by the lion, with the spitting out of the leaves signifying that there will be an abundance of everything in the coming year.

The lions are normally awarded with customary gifts like oranges symbolising wealth symbolizing luck and red envelopes containing money (Hackley Chinese 8 students made red envelopes containing notes of New Year greetings for our Lion).

(Source: www.nationsonline.org)
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