Hi Fellow Lion Dancers,

I'm back from Asia and it was a great trip. I'll send three emails. One for each country I visited.

In Singapore I saw a TV show showing a 1996 Lion Dance competition. The competition took something like 4 days to complete and was entirely Lion Dance. (I could have gotten alot of the info wrong because my Manderin is very poor)

Almost every team did the performances on the poles. They did some very amazing acrobatics on these poles. The show also showed a section of all the "crashes". Ouch! they were painful to watch. I believe all the teams were from Singapore or Malaysia.

One interesting note, the 3rd place team won without going airbourne. They didn't even stack. They did the traditional lion exits cave. It was great to watch. We are taught at my school to have power and experession. This is the traditional Hung Gar style and this team showed me what it should look like. Boy do we have a looong way to go.

Head and tail were perfectly in Sync. Also the head showed lively expression and strong stances with fluid transitions. He was able to use his legs like Lion paws and that takes lots of control. He also interacted with the tail. I wonder how the audience enjoyed it since it was "basic" compared to the acrobatics but I loved it because I know what to look for now. I assume the judges did too.

One stunt that several teams did that I thought looked cool and isn't that hard to do (relatively speaking) is the head does something similar to a flying kick forward while the tail lifts and pushes the head forward. The result is like a lion leaping forward on it hind legs.

Another stunt that was popular and extremely difficult was given the following set up:

(chang) (pole A) (pole B)

the head is on pole B and the tail is on A. They are both facing away from the chang. the head then jumps backwards towards the chang and the tail spins to face the chang. While in the air, the head wraps his legs around the tail's waist and drops down to grap the chang. I saw this on the crashes and it was ugly. The tail could hold the head and they both fell. The head was crushed and I never saw the head get up.

Another thing I noticed was that the drumming wasn't too exciting and didn't necessarily match the lion. (except for the 3rd place team)

Well there was a lot of other things but I was in a hotel and I couldn't tape it so I've forgotten most of it. I didn't see this in the video store.

I didn't have time to go to any shops in Singapore so no report there.

Stephen.

Here is part two of three.

In Malaysia, I was able to find 2 video tapes of Lion Dance competitions. (Actually I found 5 but didn't want to bring back so many. I may regret this later but they were easy to find)

1 tape is the Malaysian international tournament held in Kuala Lumpar and the other is a 2 tape set of an international competition held in Hong Kong. I have not seen the tapes yet (except for 2 minutes at the video store) since they are in PAL format and I don't have a PAL player. I'm getting them transferred to NTSC now. More to come later.

In Malaysia, I visited the Johr Bahru White Crane school. They have a championship lion dance team from a few years back. Truely impressive visit. I was fortunate that my wife's uncle was one of the lead instructors. There was the head instructor and 3 associate instructors and they just happended to all be there the night I went. It was great talking about Kung Fu. (but that's another topic)

Unfortunately, the lion dance team doesn't practice on the night I visited. I did get to talk to the lion dance instructor though. He knew McKeefe Kwan (I think that's the right spelling) from leung's white crane in SF. Is anyone on this list from there? He wanted me to pass on his business card.

He said that lion dancers these days have to have no regard for life:-) I believe it seeing the moves they do. He mentioned that for competition, they concentrate mainly on acrobatics but they still do all the traditional stuff for businesses and stuff. In fact, they rarely take out the "props" except for competitions and large exhibitions.

The school had 9 lion heads on display. These were showcase lions or lions that have been "retired." The also had an attic full of lions that they use for shows and a back room of 4-5 lions that were really trashed and used for practice. They also had several drums in several sizes. The largest was about half my height.

I also made contact to purchase lions. They threw out a number, 1800 Malaysian Ringet which is roughly $750.00 USD. This was for a head, tail, and pants in gold or silver. Some interesting points about these lions. The heads are either Fat shan or Hok Shan style. The frames are made of bamboo and aluminum/PVC which make them very strong but super light. The fur is typical of Malaysian lions which are very furry not strands like the Hong Kong style. The skin is a reflective tape material not paint. Though the design is painted on top of it. The skin is durable but light and made of a different reflective and almost glittering material. Again the fur is very furry.

They have shipped to US (maybe to White Crane) and said that it was better to ship more than one lion. They didn't have numbers for shipping. The lions are made in KL and sent to Singapore to ship. If anyone is interested, let me know. Don't know what will happen but getting a guage would be nice.

That's it for Malaysia.

Stephen

Hi Everyone,

Here is the last segment. I hope it's been at least mildly interesting...

My final lion dance stop was in Hong Kong. It was actually very difficult to find anything in Hong Kong and I want to thank Corey Chan for leading me to a few shops.

Unfortunately, I didn;t get a chance to go to the shop that Corey normally goes to but I did get to go to another one he recommeded that is owned by a Choy Li Fut master. He says he supplies Doc Fai Wong with Lions in SF.

The Sifu was very nice and very funny. We had a good conversation. We talked mainly of Kung Fu though and he didn't relate any annecdotes about lion dance. He said the art of making lions was dying in hong Kong since most folks get them from China.

His shop was very small and he only had the China lions there. He had pictures of the ones he made though.

Prices he threw out were $2000 HKD ($260 US) for complete head and tail/pants from China and about the same price for Tails/pants only made in Hong Kong. He wouldn't quote a price for the head since he would custom make those himself.

Again the big ticket item was shipping. They ship in 32x32 boxes and you have to pay an export tax. The tax is lower with volume.

The China made lions are the ones you see in the tourist shops in SF Chinatown. They cost about $600 (if you're lucky) here for the whole thing but very few places carry pants.

The ones that Chan Sifu made are very traditional and look great. The frames are all bamboo and the fur is the more traditional hair like strands.

Well, that's all I have to write (as if I didn't write enough). I'm sure I missed some details, so if anyone has questions let me know. Also, none of the prices are firm (up or down) since I wasn't really in the market to buy.

If anyone is going to Hong Kong, I wish I had bought a tail/pants set. $260 is a bargain and it would fit nicely in your suitcase. Let me know if anyone is going and willing to add some extra luggage :-)

Stephen.

On Tue, 26 Nov 1996, Stephen Chew wrote:
> Hi Fellow Lion Dancers,
[big snip]
>
> Stephen.
>

Thanks for your writeup!
Remind me if I even do a similar trip to do one too!

Next saturday a new Dutch Lion Dance organisation will be launched, with (hopefully) a dozen lions! Including ours, of course:-)

Greets, and happy dancing!
Rob Teng

SDSU is changing the address of their mail lists - starting January 1, 1997 the new list address for sending messages to will be:

Please make note of it. If you are currently subscribed to the list, you will not need to resubscribe.

Chris

Forgot to say that the new address is valid starting now, but the old address will be disabled in January, so it may be a good idea to start using liondance@lists.sdsu.edu as soon as possible.

Chris