The Lantern Festival

Saturday was August Moon or Harvest Moon or Mid Autummn. Noah and Jonah had gone to the August Moon celebration at Little Panda and performed in front of little children i.e. their peers, so I didn't feel the need to bring them to the Lantern festival on Sunday.
In fact I had been talking for some time about the fact that Chinatown should have a celebration during the actual date of Mid Autumn moon in addiction to the festival in August (not instead of). And maybe this festival exists because of a dispute between the certain people and groups in Chinatown, but the result in this case is a whole other party. So sometimes there is a benefit to a tiff. At least for tourists. Which I have sort of become.

I showed up to perform with the Federation not actually knowing what I was going to do. At first it almost seemed like I wasn't going to be doing anything, and I wished I had brought a camera or something so I could help out in that way. Then I realized I would be doing Kung Fu, because many of the kids in our group that do Kung Fu (many don't) no longer like performing. Been there done that I guess. Well if you don't love it, than I suppose you shouldn't be forced.

But then after Kung Fu ing (I felt like I wanted my drummer to play louder for me. She was a student of mine, but actually for Kung Fu drum she can still be considered new, and that drumming spirit is something that just needs to develop through experience so I didn't say anything. I just felt mildly ridiculous doing moves quietly on stage. Or maybe I really just wanted to play drum. But whatever right?)

Right, after was the dragon  dance, and as mostly white crane people went into the dragon and I went over to it and still there was not enough people, I realized that I would be doing dragon too. This was funny to me because the last time I tried dragon was First night when I sort of just went in as a guest under Wong Keung's Dragon, still for the Federation, and the time before that was Mohegun Sun, also for the Federation, but 10 years ago, the year of the golden Dragon.

I was the second guy from the head, and I had vaguely remembered a conversation with the head at the Kung Fu school where he said, "when we do it the head doesn't move, only the body swirls." and I had said, "That's weird because when we do it the head moves following the pearl and the body follows the head in a swirl." Well not a swirl but a "bai" like bowing side to side. I want to quickly ask for clarification on this conversation which had taken place more than a year ago but realized the drum had started and we were moving so there was no point. I followed the head but also made the body ripple more than the head was.

I knew too that this particular head was the biggest heaviest kind and so it was easier for the body to move more than the head. With limited space (even without limited space) moving that heavy head is difficult. A fact which I would soon find out again as someone switched me and told me to help switching the head.


Now I was Dragon Head.

I was laughing and excited in a way that I cannot remember being so excited since senior streak. Because somehow I was sort of not supposed to be doing what I was doing, and yet I was and everyone from audience to performer was just going with it. I wondered if Lion Dance would be even more fun if I had never actually touched a lion head, and just showed up on New Year's and was allowed to go int the head.

They had tricked out the Dragon head with aerosol cans to make it blow smoke and then there was a release of confetti poppers from the audience. As I stood to the side to rest I sort of got hit by one, so I ducked down and shouted "Shoot Up! UP!" in Chinese.

Anyway, I had my fun, without my kids, who went on a dinner date with Grace and were quite well behaved apparently BECAUSE I was not there.

Perhaps I should get some sort of weighted stick to work on Dragon heading as I can feel the work out I got in my muscles today. The storm made a mess of the end of the festival I heard. But it also gave me an excuse to stay out to play longer. All in all, a good time for me.