Dancing with Lions..

It is the fourth day of the Chinese New Year and today we have the opportunity to see the chinese lion dance in action. In my younger days, weeks before the Chinese New Year, we can hear rehersals and we can also peeped through broken zincs to see each teams' trainings. I am not a chinese but the growing up years in my kampung have made me understand that there are also rivals teams, then. We normally see the beautiful and colourful chinese lions like the picture above and that particular drum beat. But have you seen the round head shape coloured in fierce black, white war-like stripes painted on the face, red eye balls and black and green striped body! All the teams members wore black kung fu attire! The drums were beaten with a wicked round and round sound and you know immediately they are the bad guys. Younger days says "black is beautiful". I followed these teams and like them because of their aggresiveness. You can see more kung-fu with this team. Years ago, maybe these were allowed but now there are controls over things and to avoid unfavorable incidences. So now you see only the Hakka lions and the most cutest of them all is the Peking lions. It has been sometime that I see them dance. Maybe today, I will have that opportunity again, somewhere in Nilai.