Hey Corey:

Unfortuniately, there really is no good tape of us playing the kei lun. It might offend some of the elders if they saw it. (Hah!) But seriously, our the Chin Wu in Hawaii had a brief period a few decades ago when some of the mambers decided to break off to form another martial arts club in a friendly manner. Since they were not bitter at the original club, they decided to play the kei lun to compliment Chin Wu's southern lion. That was the original introductioon of the kei lun in Hawaii. A few of the mambers from that club, which only lasted a decade or so, are still around today and shared with us their experience with the kei lun. They had pictures of their performances and the musicians. The kei lun drum is hard to find today but the shape is very unique. The drum head is quite small and the body widens out. Its hard to describe. I tried finding it in HK and China but no luck. We unfortunately don't have a trumpet either. Our kei lun beat, is a repetative rolling beat, similar to the dragon's. However, this beat is hardly ever played because we usually play the kei lun with the lion and use the lion beat.

Thanks for sharing!!

Sherman

I've seen three types of kee-lun. On a video one that looks like a fish with a really long body. A northern? style that has two horns and looks like a horse. In hawaii sherman's group has a southern? type that looks like a rooster.

Henry

Hi guys,

We here in Malaysia still have Kei Lun (aka Chee-ling, Unicorn)performances and interestingly it defers from what it is in US/HK. The instruments used are just a pair of large cymbals(at least twice the size of a lion dance cymbal) and a gong, although in the olden days I heard that it also uses a chinese trumpet. They are mostly done by Hakka(a Chinese dialet) people. Although I do lion dance I always have this facination with Kei Lun, something about its fast head movements and the catchy music. It is in a bit of a decline now, but last year I heard that a Kei Lun group was doing pole-jumping!

>unique. The drum head is quite small and the body widens out. Its hard
>to describe.

Is it a typical drum found in Chinese Orchreastras?

What are the typical dance movements of the Kei Lun there and what sort of performances does it do(ie. greens?)?

That's all form me.

George Chan,
TAWAU,SABAH,
MALAYSIA

Hi Pontus!

Thanks for the info. Do you have any further contact information for Ho who taught in Malmö? I will try to take you up on your offer and visit your club, perhaps this summer. If you have any public lion dance performances I would love to hear about them in advance.

-Lars