Lion Dance to Celebrate Lunar New Year 2022
Happy New Year! Wishing you a year of good health, joy, happiness, prosperity and wealth! Scott and I celebrated Lunar New Year, known as Tết in Vietnamese, with my parents at Bo De Vegetarian restaurant in Garden Grove. The restaurant hosted the Thiên Ân Performing Arts group which started with a drum performance, into firecrackers and the lion dance. Check it out in my reel - it was super fun! We usually “celebrate” Lunar New Year for a week, and I believe it’s 15 days in the Chinese culture. This holiday marks the new year for those who follow the lunar calendar - of course I don’t follow the lunar calendar but this is definitely a holiday I still celebrate and it’s such an important time to be spent with family.
The lions which can be mistaken for dragons because of how the headdresses look, dance to ward off evil spirits and bring good luck and fortune. There’s two dancers, one at the front and one at the back - traditionally will be Chinese martial artists. (you have to look up some of the lion dance competitions on youtube, it’s insane the agility and complexity of the moves and dances these performers can do). The lion heads also don a mirror between their eyes to drive away bad spirits. They usually dance to the drum of the beat and cymbals and are accompanied by a happy Buddha figure that fans the lions and leads them around. Learn more about the traditions and how it varies by country and regions here. It’s just so cute how the heads and ears move, in my reel, the white and blue lion goes into the restaurant to pray at the Buddha alter and he’s seen wagging his tail. Then when the lion comes around my mom was able to feed him money! Usually you’ll feed the lions with the lucky red envelopes filled with money, and it’s said that in China they’ll be fed lettuce because the word for lettuce is similar to the word wealth - once the lion “chews” up the lettuce, they’ll spit out back out towards the spectators to give them prosperity! I hope you get the chance to experience a lion dance if you haven’t before!
