During the Chinese New celebrations many businesses have a Lion or Dragon dance to herald in the new year and to bring good luck to the business. For the past week there has been quite a few dances around our area for new apartment developments and shops in the local shopping centre.
The Lion is made up of usually two performers covered in the lion costume whereas the dragon consists of many people holding the dragon up on sticks.
The Lion dance is believed to bring good luck and fortune to the business and the dragons are believed to bring good luck to people.
In the Lion Dance the lion performs 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 lion 'eats' both, the leaves and the red packet. After eating the greens 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 or mandarins symbolising luck and red envelopes containing money.
The following videos are from a performance at our shopping centre yesterday.
Lion Dance yesterday
Dragon Dance yesterday
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The Lions |
