Lion Dance Workshop at Catholic Memorial

We we did a performance/ Workshop at Catholic memorial. I brought my small children, who acted as comic relief mostly. The most striking thing about a predominantly male audience of 500 is that when we did the yelling for with the drum for the "combo" beat, it was really powerful. I think that was the loudest "Hai!" yelling I've heard and it was really cool in unsion. It kind of made me wish I had 500 male students to work with on a regular basis. Imagine THAT team marching with flags, and weapons on Chinese New Year. It would be cool if they could all learn lion dance and Kung Fu well, but even with just some basic flag waving or spear thrusting and the yelling in Unison. That's more like an army than a team.

We covered a lot of the academic and cultural aspects about lion dance. I planned on talking about a bunch of different things, but the stuff I talked about went more with which questions were asked and less with any sort of pre-written speech. There is a lot of information. I tried talking a lot about Canton, Southern China, Taishan, but there weren't really questions about that. There was a teacher who asked if they let the animal die before the skinned it. At first I thought this was a joke as comic relief to see if the kids were paying attention, But then nobody was laughing. Then I realized it was a religious question. The assumption was that China was Buddhist and so, they didn't kill animals.

I only knew this because at Nativity I had learned that Chinese are mostly Buddhist. That's the Catholic text book belief anyway. But actually (and I didn't get to say this) a lot of people on Chinese New Year think it is Bad Luck to see anyone dressed as a Buddhist or  Taoist monk, because these clergy do not produce offspring and the that is the primary thing of importance in the mainstream Chinese Culture. In fact they may even kick these religious figures out of their family home or business. Like literally, with their feet.

So even though Buddhism and Taoism are religions that are part of Chinese Culture, the mainstream Folk religion is a little more complicated. I blahed blahed blahed about that a little bit using Kwan Gung as an example. But that was a subject I was more interested in than the students I think.

But then I think Jonah did something funny so there was laughter, another question, and then other demonstrations of Kung Fu and Lion Dance.

It was pretty fun. Grace came as major part of the team and acted more as my assistant. But I definitely could not have done the performance without her. She noted that I did not introduce myself or her, but only introduced the school. She also said it would be good to start off with meditation and Chi Gung exercises and I did and I think everyone really liked it.

Now Noah is at a Doctor's appointment with Grace and Jonah is passed out.