Lions of Bamboo Bridge Chapter one: Petals in the Stream

We arrived at the high school dressed in silky Han style uniforms. We could have stepped off of the set of a Kung Fu movie. Only we would have been playing some rebel group hiding out in the mountains because the clothing, once crisp and clean, had become somewhat ratty and ill fitting. Wrinkled, buttons falling off, a little short in the sleeves, and with mismatched belts....we looked fine, until another team in bright laser graphics of dragons came idly walking in. I tried saying hi to them but they kept walking like I owed them money. Their Dragon was new. Their drum was expensive looking. They said they didn't understand English... and then seemed not to understand my accent, and then the kids that were born here just shrugged and didn't want to talk. Theybdid their routine quite well. They paused at all the right moments, holding for applause. You could tell they had rehearsed often with a strict teacher giving instructions and corrections. There was a crispness to it. ....at the same time it was very much a folk dance choreographed routine. They had a drum, but loud music was piped in and the dance was timed to the recording with the drum trying it's best to sync up with it. It was off because it is extremely difficult not to be, and there is a reason why that is  not how its traditionally done. But if your audience doesn't know any better...

And then it was our turn.

Our drum did not look expensive.

Our lion heads were nice enough, but they were children's heads. And when people see cute... they don't necessarily acknowledge skill.

I started off speaking in Cantonese which shocked some of the Chinese members of the audience. Did I mention I look white? I am half Chinese and Nara my daughter looks Asian as does my more or less fully Asian wife. (Though she never spit in a vile for a DNA test the way I did so who really knows?) And my younger one Jinn, my son, is as Asian as his older sister....by he also looks white. The go figure.

One could say NJ one of this matters.....unless you are doing a traditional Chinese dance. This is why Joyce my wife told me to do an intro in Cantonese even though most of the audience was white. We had to look like we knew what we were doing before we started. So I made a big show as if I just stepped off the set of a TVB period piece, with hand gestures and a booming Wuxia male voice... cause why not?

 Our baby lion heads were little Liu Bei Lions, and ironically had white hair. They had been gifts from another Sifu in Boston whose students had grown into men and women. I had used them at many a library, school, and children's performance around Boston's Chinatown and other Boston Neighborhoods. Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, Downtown, Copley, and the Common. Nara actually had pretty could head movements. 

The tails were short. Like short short. Slew had another red lion head that we had used that had seen better days, and we had made the tail to that one longer by seeing some cloth from IKEA which had happened to have the 喜喜  wedding pattern all over it.

Anyway, I pulled that off the red head, which I still used for classes and teaching and put it onto the little Liu Bei head so that Nara and Jinn could do a proper lion dance with the tail a decent distance away from the head without falling out or being cramped.

Joyce played the other head with nobody as her tail. It was short enough so that but didnt hit the ground. We looked fine. If you hadn't expected a real lion dance team we looked great. The problem I guess was that we WERE a real lion dance team. But this is what we had and who we had. Our family and volunteers from the audience which I would teaching right now. Not minutes before I went on stage, but as part of the show...after I went on stage. In fact, as you may recall, I was on stage right at this moment. 

We had the drum propped on a wooden box like structure. It was actually a base to some sort of statue. You see, we had left Boston because of work/school/money.  Yeah that's it. In theory we had also moved to be closer to Joyce's parents in their old age. But what actually happened was they kind of fled when we moved in, like we kicked them out of their house. But that is a different story isn't it?

The house was filled with many treasures and creatures from across the world. But all of them like second rate treasures. Oh were you looking for the holy Grail to give you eternal life? No we don't have that. But we have the Grail of bitter mouth wash that will make your teeth actually have more plaque...but for up to three days tou will be able to strike an enemy (or friend  if you weren't careful) dead with a single blow from your left hand.

Oh were you searching for the questing beast? Well here are a pair of Nian monsters that fit I to the palm of your hand. (These were good actually because they ate compost and dust and seemed to be happy with that. They didnt take much maintenance. In fact we didn't even realize they were living with us. Once I reopened an altar they came to pray by the incense and started living properly. Joyce's mother had neglected these spiritual creatures really, and failed to realize they could actually guard the house small as they were.

Oh were you looking for the wordless book from Heaven? Well...we have a wordless crumpled up note pad that various deities use to give us "prophecies" mostly they are jokes. I mean some of them are pretty funny, and I guess if I were a deity, I would want someone to communicate with that could just appreciate my sense of humor too instead asking for all this nonsense. I mean the well meaning prayers are the most difficult of all. Peace on earth and good health for everyone... that's even harder than asking for a new car if you think k about it. For a new car you can just encourage them to work for it and it is a real possible goal you know?

Anyway. That's what I mean by second rate treasures. I mean they were one of a kind...but also kind of worthless to an thief or something. Even potentially dangerous. So there were Ll these knick knock andnstuff too. Statues all over the house. Not displayed nicely but dumped next to cans of bamboo shoots leftover from before the Cultural Revolution, and soap and toothpaste and records from some other neighbor who hoarded too, and then died. 

So among these things, we found a little box to put our little boyish drum on. It looked good for display honestly. The box was a nice color, the drum was a nice color, it sat at a good height to play the drum so long as you got into a front stance first. All was well. Well... sort of. Ehh you'll see.

"The drum is the beginning. When you hear the beat of your mother's heart when you are first conceived and coming unto existence it is this beat. Dudum du dumb dududm. And from their you get that basic lion dance beat. But to do our lion dance we will need more than that. We will need the crashing of the cymbals and the playing of the gong. Let's clap it first. CHAHNG chahng Chahng. Pause! CHAHNG chang Chang. 123 123. Yes good now stop."

I had the whole audience clapping and then repeating the drum beats. Duc doo g chahng duc doing chahng.

Then they would sing it back.

Duc doing Chang chahng chahng

And they repeated

You know its very interesting. None Chinese will always jump right in and do this. As will Chinese Americans raised by immigrant parents from the South, those that speak English as a second language, if at all. In fact most of them already sing these words. But the second English becomes their first language, it is as if speaking with those tones has somehow become taboo. Not just foreign, but forbidden. Something to be ashamed of and not repeated especially if you are immersed in white culture. 

Well anyway the whole gym of mostly non Asians was booming these words at my instruction at the moment, as was the case every single time I did this.

I found people who could play cymbals and gongs. Actually I went through several rounds giving people volunteers from the audience a turn. Honestly, if we stayed on this section of the performance and never even did lion dance their might not even be any complaints. If I had nobody with me and made the audience dance with the head the only complaint would be that they didn't get a turn, or two turns, or three turns on the lion head. Really we could just stand on the precipice of lion dance without actually doing it for three hours and the children would think the event was great. I guess the real reason we did the lion dance was because I wanted to do it. 

After a few rounds of drum playing I began to tell the story of the Lion Dance.

Gu Doi yee cheen
Yau yiew gwai giew lean.
But long but fu yau si jee mean
Leen leen do lei
sic yeh sai lei
di yan lee mai san serng bei yut bei.
Yau yut yut hai teen lock lei
do hai giew leen
Bo wu ngau dei
Leen leen yee hau
Jing fahn see tau
Da lau gu ehrng siew jerng pau
Leen moh gung
moh duc sahng mahng dee
Bai mun hou hing jook sun leen
Sahng uee hing long
Sun tai geen hong

現在鼓ooooogle Translate My song...

(Then I played the drum in a more hip hop inspired beat. some people didn't like this. But... this was my drum and my show.)

In Kingdom 月 there was a village

That the Nian monster would come and pillage.

He came every year

and out of fear

People hid up in the mountains crying tears

Until One day, Came a new Nian

Becoming the village guardian. 

Later, Paper, Bamboo and paint, Cloth body tail sculpted into the shape, 

of a head of a fierce horned lion with flames, walk on divine light, like a white crane! Ramming Horn Strikes! Twisting Waist Might! The lion's roar is ready to fight! A paper Mache moving meditation, The drum sings the heartbeat of a nation! Grasping the Sky from the earth to Rise, the sun and moon have Organized...

Groundshaking firecrackers exploding red paper and smoke, spring couplets penned by old folk. 

Now don't blink an eye and watch what we do, when we dance the lion dance Hei Gu!!!

And then we were lion dancing.

I played that little drum... which wasn't all that little. It didn't look like a toy, but compared to the nicely finished drum of the Dragon team before us, which looked like it was one solid piece if wood hollowed out instead of a barrel of several pieces glued together... well the drum didn't really compare. But the main difference was, I knew how to drum... not just play some beats on the leather but to really create the sound and the atmosphere. I wasn't a student, I was a Sifu.

Embarrassingly, the drum fell from the makeshift stand. It wasn't even a stand but a pedestal. I had used a stronger more stable dolly at home. But that didn't look as good. Now I was stuck trying to fix my drum with one hand and continue the beat. So much for being a Sifu. Now I looked like a clown. 

This is what I have become 

This is freaking pathetic. 

The high school kids who had volunteered to gong and cymbal looked on in horrified sympathy. 

"Should we start over?"

But no... you can't. It's not like a piano recital. Lion dance is more than that. Or should be. At least when it is done right and with the right equipment.

The drum found its balanced point and now the beats carried through that gym. You couldn't tell the drum was so small. To be honest... be cause I hit the center of the drum and because I struck with purpose and as a leader of the gong and cymbals instead if trying to sync with a Karaoke machine....this tiny drum was louder than the one that had played for the dragon.

The lions did their dance. Nara finished up quickly and both heads bowed three times.

I gave  a speech about how we were new to the state of New Jersey and how we were teaching at Plum Blossom Chinese School and how we would be better as our team grew.

I met with some people who inquired about classes and even possibly future performances....really? After that? But it's true we had shown skill despite failure and embarrassment. We needed more people. And to get more people I would have to train more people.