Guzhen Lion Performance Fotos
Today was what I was hoping Shunde was gonna be. Only problem was that I was grade A in Shunde and I was about Grade B- today. I am saddened by that, but I had lots of fun today. The plus side to my mistakes today is that one of the troop members was videotaping me and didn't really know how to use the camera, so he missed a few of my mistakes.
I got up early again and took a motorbike to the Yongling studio. There are less people here today. For some reason, which I chalk it up to lack of space, the dragons are coming today. That cuts out a bunch of folks. We just packed everyone into a couple cars and vans. Guzhen is a much smaller town and we went to an area that is very tightly packed. Guo Sifu drove the van I was in while his wife drove the car and we seperated from the equipment truck and another car. We got out of the van and had a small makeshift parade down an empty street towards a temple and stage/performance area. While dancing down the street, bit by bit we came upon more and more people, there was another Lion Dance troop already at the temple, I think it was the Guzhen troop. They had two lions. When our three lions arrived at the temple square, their lions inspected our lions and vice-versa...and they were sniffing butts just like dogs. They worked each other over and I was videotaping. An old guy came to yell at me to get out of the troops way and one of the team members explained I was in the team. This brought tons of stares my way from the Guzhen troop.
Greetings ended and I was the only non-chinese person there. Stares in Guzhen are much more super saturated in Guzhen because they dont ever see foreigners, Xiaolan and Shiqi are much more open relatively. We unpacked the truck and put the lion pedestals on the stage and then Guo Sifu mentioned for me to come with him. Some people stayed back to set up the pedestals. I flipped on the videocamera and walked with them our lions and the drummers. They had put the big drum on its rollers along with the cymbol stand and they rolled those down the street with the lions. We marched and followed the Guzhen troop around town. We arrived at the Guzhen Government building where our lions proceeded to bless the building and office rooms with its supernatural powers of non-corruption. Lets hope that this year it works, cause it never has. ;-)
All the while we were travelling around and blessing stuff in the streets and at the Government building, a couple fellas had those "pou jo" firecrackers that are super loud and they would throw them in the path of the lions, far ahead of the lions mind you, but ahead of them and the explosions would throw the red paper out like sprinking rose petals by the flower girl for the bride during a wedding. They were soooo friggin' loud. I really need to get some earplugs for tomorrow's festivites...and for sleep tonite. My last pair of earplugs fell on the ground and I dare not put those things back in my ears. The government building's outer layer is tile just like every other chinese construction and this caused the echo of the firecrackers to multiply the noise by a factor of "shut the hell up!" The worst place was in the stairwell because in addition to the most echo, there was no wind and the smoke from all the fireworks just hung in the air, I started to choke on the smoke, it was that bad.
After the government building we headed back to the Temple where they blessed the temple to be more honest with its congregation. The firecrackers here were almost as bad as in the Government building in the enclosed areas of the temple. I so wanted to take the firecrackers away or wished that his hand would get blown off. After we left the temple, someone had strapped a pole to a building column and at the end was a succession of vegetables tied up with bagged candy and sweets. The lions would go at each level and take turns. It got to the point where they were standing on each others shoulders and what not. Finally, the tallest guy was trying to get the second to last prize, but he couldn't cut it off and then he slipped a bit of the second's shoulders and he held onto the prize and pulled everything off the pole as he fell. He landed fine, he just lost his balance. No injuries. That drew cheers from the crowd.
While the lions sat on the ground fooling around with the spoils, Guo Sifu found me and told me to do Hong Quan in about 2 minutes. WHAT!? Apparently we aren't following the schedual he said we had. Great. I rushed some stretches and because of my hurridness, I didn't feel ready. I could give numbers of reason of why I made a few mistakes on the forms, but the number one reason that I made mistakes is that I still need more practice. I need to be able to do them without thinking, and that will take a bit more time. I am totally gonna practice at home when i get back. As I stretched a bit behind the spectators some people were staring at me and wondered, "Why is a white devil wearing a lion troop uniform?"
So, before I went on, there were three people there who spoke english that were taking fotos of stuff and they chatted with me. I went out in front of everyone and did Hong Quan #1. That one went fine. Then Sifu's daugther performed. I thought I was done, but then Sifu told me to go back on for #3. Crap. This is the one i goofed a bit on. I also slipped during it thru no fault of my own. Some kid had urinated on the ground again because Chinese people don't potty train their kids which could lead to the mental problems they have later on because potty training is considered a very important part of mind developement. John Irish and I have had many interesting conversations on this topic. So, anyways, the urine mixed together with the paper from those damn firecrackers and while I was doing my form I slipped on it, thankfully I caught my footing and went on with the form which drew some cheers, but my mind was already not where it should have been and my performance suffered. Lousy chinese culture. Pissing on the ground where people are performing. In the words of Kevin Meaney, "You're like a crazy person! Peeing on the ground whenever and whereever you want. That's not right!"
After the temple performances we went to the stage area. There were a couple lion dances and then Guo Sifu went up and talked a bit and on the spot I was told to do Hong Quan. CRAP! Oh well. The chinese way. So I did #1 and it was ok. I had change the form a bit because if not I would have fallen off the stage. Sifu's daughter went on, then another Wunderkind did a form then Guo Sifu put me on for #3 and this was better than during the Temple one. After I was done, Sifu's daughter told me that he wants me to say something for about 1 minute to the crowd. "What's the point, they can't understand me at all." Just say something for 1 minutes. Whatever.
I went up and I was about to start, I just said "Jo sun" (Cantonese goodmorning) and then some other sucka-MC pipped in with Mandarin and said some stuff. Then I got to speak. After the first sentence in English, the audience started to laugh. So I told them, "I realize that no one here understands what they hell I am saying, so I will make this quick." Sifu just stood their looking so happy like I had just cured cancer or something. The things chinese do for face. :D Guo Sifu rules though.
I only video taped the wushu performances and the pedestal dance, but I took fotos of the other acts. The pedestal dance was great. No mistakes taht I could see. He didnt fall today. The crowd went crazy for this one. It was great.
After that, the crowd dispersed and we packed up the truck. While doing so I had a few chinese people come up to me and give me the thumbs up and say stuff like, "Hun hou!" repeatedly. (means very good) and other things. It was very nice. One guy had 5 shiny metal teeth (chrome flavor prolly) on his lower jaw and I swear I think the other guy had wooden teeth. The guy with the metal must be a gangsta rapper. The things I notice. May God have mercy on me.
We packed up and headed back to Xiaolan. After we dropped some people off at the studio, Guo Sifu took us out to lunch. It was good. After we ate lunch, most people had left except for the Wunderkinden that needed to go back, me, and Guo Sifu. We were watching the news and a bit came on about Condoleeza Rice's trip to Europe and Middle East, but after a second it was on, the news was cut straight to a commericial. Then the commercial was cut back to the news for another story. I knew it was Condoleeza Rice because her grill his pretty unmistakeable. A news story about Chinese New Year in New York City came on. That was nice to see. After that Sifu drove me home. I have to meet them at 730AM tomorrow for our trip to ShanXiang. Great.
I went to go pick up a couple pair of pants I took to get repaired because I ripped them in the crotch and I forgot which repair shop I took them too. There are about 4 right in a row. However, I figured out that the one I took them to was closed. I will get them tomorrow. I came back here and started writing this journal entry.