The bottom of the mouth of one of my Lion's has a hole in it from overuse. What kind of material can I use to repair that hole? (maybe a hard tape?_

hi all,

my name is terence and i'm new here. i'm from toronto and i've been in lion dancing for about a year. i represent the chung wah gung fu centre, we haven't got a team yet but that should change soon.

bye fer now,

TY

> Thanks Tim for your suggestion regarding PAL and NTSC format conversion.
> Also I would like to thank Stephen Chew for my error. Also you forgot to
> mention the VCRs north of US -- Canada. We have the same format as you
> guys down there.

Thanks Johnny. I actually didn't know. I wasn't sure if you made the error because you guys "up there" actually use PAL.

> I better stop now otherwise this lion dance mailing list will become more
> or less like a VCR mailing list.

Too late. Looks like I've added to it to.

For Liondance content. Does anyone have titles of instructional or traditional liondance in Chinese? (Use Pinyin or other suitable romanization) My wife will be going to Malaysia/Singapore next month and I wanted to see if she could find anything.

Stephen

Wen Teck Liew wrote:
> Hello,
> My name is Peter Liew, I'm in Auckland, New Zealand. I wil be starting a
> Lion Dance club at the university here next year. Lion Dancing is one of
> my greatest passion, and I look forward to hearing from the group and share
> discussions. I have many funny accidents from my experiences and don't mind
> sharing for a good laugh.

Glad to see you enjoying lion dancing so much. Please share your experiences. We would love to hear the amusing incidents. :)

Yes, I don't mind sharing them but first whoever wrote me this note please identify yourself. What's M?

Thank you and regards.

Peter Liew W T.

Hi Peter,

> Yes, I was hoping for a reply from you. I am not very well known yet in
> Auckland. At the moment I am setting up a basic team consisting mostly of
> members in my family and some close friends. By next year I should hope
> that we would be ready to set the club up and teach others what we can and
> build on it. Do you have any tips on how I may start? I have some ideas,
> like performing on enrolment week to attract students. I don't have much
> idea on how to start teaching, except a few basic forms of Kung Fu in the
> beginning. But with only one set of drum equipment and only one lion head,
> I have some concerns on teaching a big group of people. What is your
> experience and how do you deal with it if I may ask?

Well, I started just like you, but with only a lion head. We trained with the local Chinese team, but as they were not that active, I formed another group affiliated to the University of Canterbury. But we still trained with the local chinese team and perform for them.The advantages of training with the local chinese team is that we get to use their hall, lions and two drums. We have no Kung Fu conections, but we had the good fortune of having Master Siow for a week, and he taught us just enough to start. The beginers start with the cymbals as we find it is the easiest way for them to get the beat and 'feel' of the dance. Then gradually we seperate them to either music or dance section. We have the 'music sheet' for the Hock Shan drum beats, and it facilitates us a lot. You can have it if you want but it may be a bit confusing without someone first showing how it actually sounds like. However, we are still experimenting with ways of how best to teach, and a lot is still up to the student. The hardest part is to make them practice as much as possible and still keep them interested. We don't have many members, but I think if there are too many members, we will teach in groups and also use the equipment only when neccassary like clapping hands instead of using cymbals, etc. How do you teach if I may ask?

> As for the Lion Dancing teams here, I know of only two good ones. One is
> from East Malaysia (Sabah) and the other one, the teacher is from Penang
> with some non-Malaysian students. There are other teams but these two are
> the only ones as far as I know do it properly and professionally. There is
> also a popular Wushu school which I have heard of which also do Lion Dancing
> but have not met them yet. They have a lot of connections with the Hong
> Kong Society here. But until I see them in action, I cannot comment on
> their Lion Dancing ability. Generally I see a pattern that each society or
> association of Chinese nature has their "own" preference of dancers for
> functions. It may be a bit much for me to say, but I have to say that
> sometimes when I see a group not doing the Lion Dance properly and looking
> as if the Lion is pregnant and crazy I do feel it to be quite an insult to
> our Chinese culture. In saying that, I am not referring that all other
> teams besides the two that I have mentioned are no good. Its only quite
> recently that I have started to be active in Lion Dancing and I'm sure there
> are others around Auckland which I may have not met yet.

Guess what, I'm also from Sabah! It is funny how many Malaysian is doing the dance overseas. Wow, I am suprise there are so many teams up there. One of my ambitions is to one day get to know every group, and help form some sort of lion dance federation in NZ. As usual, Chinese everywhere is as ununited as anywhere. This also true in CHCH, but as we are the only "working" group, we get to perform for most of the chinese groups. Hopefully we will have good relations with them all. I know your feeling when you see such lion dance for I feel just as strongly too. I also feel disappointed for certain lion dancers who has attitudes that will not help this art. Unfortunately it is not our place to say anything. The only thing is for us to show by example. Hopefully, these people will get the point. Do you have any 'working relationship'with any of them? By the way, thanks for sharing the scene, it was very interesting.

> Thank you very much for your offer. I hope to learn your ways of
> generosity, people like you are scarce these days and are a good example to
> people like me. Although, embarrassingly I have to admit to you I can only
> read my own name and basic characters. But I am learning slowly and if you
> don't mind sending me anyway it would be great. Our teacher would be
> interested in your article. I'm Hakka (Kejia), but I can speak some cantonese.

Ji Ga Nyin! well, not quite, but I do speak a bit of Sin On Hakka. Oh thankyou, but you should thank Master Siow as he started the trend of "sharing", not known to the Chinese. Lion dancers need to help each other for the good of the art. I am sending you two sheets, one in traditional and the other in simplified Chinese, as written by Master Siow.

> Thank you and I wish you success too in your prospering club. I will
> definitely need your help and advice in the future.

You're most welcome. Best of luck to you too. Hope to see you in the discussions again.

Regards,

George Chan

Hi, George!

On Mon, 25 Aug 1997, J.S. Chan wrote:
> Sure, no problem. By all means share it with anyone who wants it. Don't
> thank me, I also got this manuscript from somebody else (Master Siow),
> and he encourages sharing. If it is convenient, can you tell me
> something of the groups who are getting the copies? It will be nice to
> know more groups around the world. Thankyou for your offer and
> generosity, I will definitely look you up if I am in your part of the
> world, and you are always welcome here too.

Thank you very much for your sharing! :)

I'm afraid I don't know too much about the kung fu clubs here in Hawaii. I was an active member of the Kuo Min Tang Physical Culture Association. I have some friends in Lung Kong, and there's another club, Jing Moo, that makes up the big 3 in Hawaii. Maybe some other list members from Hawaii can tell you more about the clubs and their styles and lion dancing. Hawaii has almost entirely Fat Shan heads with the longer bodies. There are now several dragons here (2 Cantonese and the others are Taiwanese?)

> I will try to send it as an attachment. The file will be a Word7
> document(blessing.doc) written using CSTAR 2. I think you can read it by
> downloading some chinese reader from the WWW. Do tell me if it works or
> not. If it doesn't I will send it by mail.

Thanks for the file! I'll use a Chinese reader to see if it works! How long is it supposed to be? I only received a page of it, I believe.

> P.S. I have a very rough translation of it in english, do you want it?
> It was done by me and I must say it is not too good, but it does give
> the non-chinese reader a bit of info.

Yeah! That would be great, if you could e-mail me the English translation you did! Thanks a lot!

:)

Tim

Your right but they usually do the sleeping lion.

Hi Tim,

> I'm afraid I don't know too much about the kung fu clubs here in Hawaii.
> I was an active member of the Kuo Min Tang Physical Culture Association.
> I have some friends in Lung Kong, and there's another club, Jing Moo, that
> makes up the big 3 in Hawaii

Thankyou for sharing. Sounds to me the dance is quite active there!

> Thanks for the file! I'll use a Chinese reader to see if it works! How
> long is it supposed to be? I only received a page of it, I believe.

Yes, there is only one page. Do tell me whether you can read it or not.

> Yeah! That would be great, if you could e-mail me the English translation
> you did! Thanks a lot!

I will be sending it soon. I hope it is not too inaccurate, but it does sound funny. Hope they are helpfull! Anybody on the list who wants it can just mail me. Maybe we can comment on it and have some discussion on it. What do you all do for "the blessing(Kai Guang)"?

Hope to see you on the discussions soon.

Regards,

George

J.S. Chan wrote:
>What do you all do for "the blessing(Kai Guang)"?

We will be having a blessing of three new heads this Friday. I hope to have some pictures to post up. Its been a while since I've touched my web page but maybe I'll have a few nice pictures of the "kai kuang".

Happy dancing.

Sherman

Dear John,

> There was one that is a beautiful shape of blue with silver and white trim.
> That was very popular at the school, being the school colors. There were a
> number of white ones, which I had not seen any Dallas either.

Well, the "white" ones are actually silver. the colour White is only used, by the chinese, during funerals. There are white lions, but they are only used for funerals.

> I am aware that the performances are for a "Championship" and the dances are
> done to show skill in doing the most difficult elements of the dance.
> Something like the Lao or Cambodian dance I showed when I only had one dance
> and the Queen of England was watching. We had Lao music, however, most of the
> dance was done balancing on one leg with a elbow touching a foot. You do
> something to get attention and show what the hardest possible thing to do is,
> it wasn't exactly traditional, which I think is what happens on the Lion
> Dance Championship tapes.

Yes, the lion dance championships are not strictly traditional and it does show the hardest part of the dance. This is actually an evolution of the art. Lion dance traditionaly was done during festive celebration, but since its origin is not clearly known, the dance has been used for many things over the years. I think it started as a representation of a holy animal used for blessing during the festive seasons, then it became a disguise for martial artist to train and show off their prowness without actually sparring. Slowly it became 'competitions' whereby the objective was to get the "green". Thus, the moves started more and more complex. Thus, the lion dance had become just an extension of the martial art. In the 1980's people started to change it again, and started to emphasize on the 'form' of the lion(not just the lion head dancer). Thus shorter tail and more animal like movement are used. In order to promote it, they organised it into a sport. The recent championships are of such nature. The 'competition style' is actually a evolution of a part of the "traditional" lion dance called the lion going up a platform. The skills and dance(form) are emphasised in these competiton. Points are given to the skills [moves](similar to gymnatics), the form[posture/movement] of the lion, the coordination between the lion head/tail, the coordination between the lion and music, the coordination between the musicians, and the 'story' of the dance. This is just a rough guide. They are also people who are a bit worry by the loss of tradition, and now they have a traditional championship. "Traditional" lion dance also involves many puzzle solving and sketches that are culturally significant or a simple story. Unfortunately, some of this involves very 'complicated' Chinese(aslo some confucious,Taoism and buddism) traditional matter/concept/blessings/puzzle, etc. and is very difficult to understand and explain. Many younger people could not understand and appreciate it, and in order to promote it to the younger generation, the dance has become more 'sport' like. There is of course still many traditional matters involved with it, but many which are considered to be too 'supersticious' are removed (like forbidding girls from doing the dance). It is always hard to balance the entertainment and traditional aspect of the dance. The dance is gaining popularity with young people now, and this evolution seems to be helping to preserve the art. Maybe this is the right mix for the lion dance in the 1990's. Traditional and history are written by the people of the time anyway.

> Any particular significance to using so many white and Gold Lions in the
> Championship tapes?

No, not really. The only colour that can't be used is white. Silver and cold is a popular colour now because it looks nice. There are many combinations of colours, the more traditional ones are yellow, multi-colour, red/black, black/white, green/black, purple, etc. But now any colour is okay. The newest trend in Malaysia is the 'Batik Lion' whereby the body is made of the local Batik cloth, and the colour and patern of the head is the same as the body. Thus now you get lions which are trully multi-pattern and coloured and I find them as the most beutiful lions around. There are two in the 'Shanghai' tape you have(the 2 Malaysian teams).

Well, I hope my opinions has been helpful. I hope your work with the traditional asian dance is going well. If there is anything I can help, do not hesistate to contact me. Keep up the good work!

Regards,

George Chan,

P.S. Do you mind if I share this mail with the members on the lion dance mailing list? It would be nice if there is some discussion on the matter.

hi, just one quick question. aren't the silver and white lion the same? from what i know, they both have the same symbolism: being danced only at funerals. please correct me if i'm wrong.

sorry if the original message didn't show, i had a bit of trouble because it was an attachment.

TY

Hi Terence,

> hi, just one quick question. aren't the silver and white lion the same?
> from what i know, they both have the same symbolism: being danced only at
> funerals. please correct me if i'm wrong.

No, only the white lion is used for funerals, and it has been in existence for many, many years. The Silver lion is just another 'ordinary' modern colour, the same as the gold, Batik, and flouresence colours. White is the only colour used for funeral, silver is not. For the chinese people, white is avoided as much as posible, and if silver is also used for funeral I don't think they would have been used in so many competition and new year performances by so many teams.

Well, that's my understanding anyway.

George

On Fri, 29 Aug 1997, J.S. Chan wrote:

but from a modern perspective, symbolisms don't seem to matter that much any more. agreed that if they, white and silver, did mean the same, they wouldn't be used, but in competitions they go for the look rather than the meaning. so if that were the case they could both have the same meaning right?

TY

Dear Chris:

My name is CHOY LEOW. Before I go any further, let me just take care of some particulars:

Address:
13605, OAKLAND DRIVE
BURNSVILLE, MN 55337

Phone:
(612) 290-1863(w)
(612) 892-0498(h)

Email:
CLEOW@BWBR.COM

I am a lion dance ENTHUSIAST!(Southern style, i.e.) And I guess I should have surf earlier for links like this, but just didn't get around to it. Have a reason to do so now:

I am looking for a place to acquire a set for the Chinese American Dance Theatre(CADT) in Saint Paul, Minnesota. I learned Lion Dance(Southern style) as a kid in Malaysia as part of the martial arts lessons I took(Wing Choon Kung Fu) from 1970-1981. My kung-fu skills are essentially "returned to my master", but lion dance is still VERY MUCH IN MY BLOOD! Have been working with the Malaysian students in Iowa State University the past 10 years, essentially doing a show once a year.(I went to ISU for my architectural degrees. I now practice out of Saint Paul, MN, on both local and South East Asian projects.)

The CADT is interested in having me teach a young children and adult troupe. We need to equip ourselves first and that's why I am searching. Glad to have found you!

If you can clue me in as to where to price out for the following:
Lion head and tail(preferably red, although yellow or black will be OK)
the drum
2 sets of cymbals
1 gong

Please return my request at your earliest convenience.

Thank you!

Choy

Hi Choy,

Welcome to the list. I hope you will take the time to tell us some stories about your lion dancing and other related topics.

I don't know of any place in MN to get lions but in Northern California you can look at http://www.clarionmusic.com/instruments/masks.html or, as someone on list posted call:

Chong Importers (Chong Kee Jan Co., Inc.)
838 Grant Avenue
San Francisco, California
USA 94108-1738

Tel: (415) 982-1432

These places have decent quality lions.

Stephen.

Hi Steve,

Do you know if either of the places that you listed have children sized heads? I have been teaching some children about 10 years old and the heads we have are too small for them. I wanted to get some idea of what's available and how much it costs.

Jeff Hung

> Hello, Stephen:
> Great of you to respond to my message so soon! I appreciate it very much!
> Asking me to tell stories about my lion dance experience is a pretty
> dangerous thing to do...it could take a while! But I am REALLY glad that I
> can now explore and share this wonderful Chinese tradition through the Net
> with individuals like you!

Hi Choy,

I think you will enjoy this list. The traffic is off and on but we all love to hear the kind of stories you typed. We have the common goal of promoting lion dance and making sure this great art does not go to the wayside.

I hope you don't mind, but since you only responded to me and not to the group, I'm forwarding your post to the group. If you wish to keep future emails private, let me know. We are pretty open on this list and I'm sure they would enjoy it. By the way, I assume you have joined the list.

Keep posting.

Stephen.

---------------------------[begin forwarded message:]----------------------------------------
My father introduced me to the art form indirectly. He wanted me to learn martial arts...but when I discovered lion dance, it captured my heart...I pretty much learned kung fu just to continue doing lion dance...

That was late 1969, early 1970. From them on I was never home the first 3 days of Chinese New Year because I was with the troupe, plying the streets and neighborhoods "choying chang"(retreiving greens...) It was a hoot! I would always come home after the first day after the big meal with the troupe in some fancy Chinese restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, totally exhausted. My mother would pamper me really good and wake me up the next morning before my si-fu shows up to pick me up for another day of "work"...

Learned the art pretty much from "tail to head" and everything in between, and I do each one with great passion. I can whip up a fury with the gong as much as I crank out of the drum...To me, the lion tail is as crucial as the head.

When I left home and went to school at Iowa State, the earlier years were pretty quiet with the focus of school and me just being plain tired from having done it for so many years and all the new "distractions" in the new country didn't help...

Finally, in 1986/87, when I served as President of the Malaysian student group, we decided that year to do a lion dance segment for the show we do annually and raise funds for local charities and social agencies. It was the first time, I believe, people in Ames, saw live Chinese Lion Dance. At least it was my wife's, Connie, first time seeing me do it. She > could believe the ways I could "contort" my legs for some of the moves...I said once I don the prop, I essentially go into a trance...

I taught a group of students to do it with rented props from Chicago Chinatown in two weekends...The show was a hit and we were written up in the Des Moines Register in a column by Chuck Offenburger. The following years till my graduation from my Masters degree in 1988, lion dance became our show staple. The Chicago people got to know us, waived security deposit and reduced rental fees. The highlight was when the Governor came and Connie and I got to sit at the head table with Mr and Mrs Brandstad...

Last year, after years of renting, the International Students Council voted to buy a full set as part of the University "Cultural Kit" and Malaysian students continue to lead the efforts of putting on shows.(The next one is "Asian Night" to be held in Des Moines, Iowa.) I continue to serve as "idea man" and "si-fu" with two, three, generations of students now...

Meanwhile, I have the ambition to foster the tradition here in Saint Paul where I now call home. I have been talking to a couple of dance group, one run by Taiwanese, the other by Mainland Chinese, to get things going. Both indicated interest since last year, but now the Mainland Chinese group(the Chinese American Dance Theatre) is finally ready to seek funding and have me come in to teach...

That's why I am scambling. I contacted the student who helped acquired the set in ISU. That was arranged out of Hong Kong. I would like to see if I can find someplace here to do so. I will contact the place you recommended. Thanks again for the info!

If you would like to see the Malaysian Students doing the dance: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~amsisu/homepage.html

Nice to gain your email acquaintance!

Keep well!

Choy

------------------------------[end forwarded message]-----------------------------------------------