Here We Go CNY 2013 (Part 1)

Ok finally, some of our CNY pics. There was a sign in our development that there would be lion dance over the weekend so I was hoping to get some lion dance pics. We came away with way more than that, it was like, one of the most enjoyable lion dance-y experiences we’ve ever had.

We had the perfect Goldilocks weather (not too hot not too cold), and not too crowded or loud either, the 2 lions and 1 dragon were happily mingling in the crowd being petted by all the little kids – but here’s my surprise – for what I expected to be a simple prancing about since its “just” the lion dance in our housing development, it was not – it was freaking AWESOME!!! 

Sexy Lion - serious acrobatic pole dancing

Best lion dance I’ve seen upclose, can compete with all the acrobatic ones you see on tv. Only prob was the very bright sunlight making pics hard because of the shadow…

Like so... (Also, Rockstar habitually likes to pull his fedora down low and sometimes we forget to tell him to push it back up for pics)

And so...

Anyway it was still really, really great to have such an elaborate lion dance simply right there at the bottom of all the apartments (and not very crowded at all, all the kids got their Lion Fix).

Dis lion was actually jumping between alternate poles back and forth (not say, walking on each pole) but later I realized I didn't manage to catch him in mid-air

"My butt is cuter than your butt"

Ta-ra ta-ra

The funny thing is the relatively high number of non-Asians who were really enjoying this (building management of course is pretty local with also a very high Mainland clientele), I think many locals and Mainlanders instead went on vacation or else were so used to this as to not stick around for most of the 2-hour event (later when we went into the clubhouse we could see a lot more Asians eating in the restaurant or reading/ playing table tennis/ badminton in the games rooms etc).

Local ex-colleagues used to tell me that’s their preferred mode of celebration nowadays to cut hassle from home meal prep (possibly also less risk of tempers flaring) et al, instead, they alternate trips and eating out, some of which they will bring along all the old folk to – it’s why in the previous post I commented the “Long One Short One” video was “very Malaysian” – because of scenes like 1) all the old folk “eating sotong (dried squid)/ playing mahjong” and the young folk vegging out on iPad/ Galaxy/ iPhone etc, some dressed in the obligatory red, and 2) Yee Sang Lo Hei (almost non-existent in HK – more on that later…)

You are supposed to touch the tongue or beard or something for luck... you see lah I don't even know which 😛

Not that easy to reach the tongue right? But the dragon dancers are seriously sporting if you have a child trying to pet it

Even our dealing room lion dances entailed a lot more simple prancing about between desks, though in retrospect I think partly because it wasn’t outdoors (also, one very grouchy British dealer got told off for totally ignoring the lion, who tried its very furry best to get his attention – I couldn’t tell how much of it was because they were afraid it would mess with the juju of the dealing room (I remember an emcee painstakingly telling one of our obviously non-Chinese ex-bosses a roast pig must be cleaved completely from top to bottom in ONE motion – in fact it’s probably safer to look obviously non-Chinese because then they will warn you about faux pas instead of assuming you know and then getting unhappy when you accidentally mess up juju) and how much was simply because of what his sulking at the festivities might do for morale)… 

Bragging rights - Rockstar's petted a lion

And another...

Should’ve realized this is HK, their default “Cina-cina” stuff gonna be quite “high standard.” (Later Rockstar would tell me his school lion dance also had acrobatics. I’m still What Gives, So Nowadays Anyone Can Hop About On Each Others Shoulders While Wiggling A Cute Furry Tail? Did you do your hopping and tail wiggling this morning before heading to the office darling?)

The lions were giving out snake soft toys and other “lucky charms” and Rockstar initially wanted one (Freebie Thrown By Lion On Pole who doesn’t want?), though we didn’t catch any of the ones flung into the audience they had plenty leftovers that we could queue for but instead I had palmed a spare favorite seaweed snack of his that I’d kept in the baby bag for just such an emergency (it after all not being out of the realm of possibility a lion runs out of the snakes your child wants), disappeared into the crowd around the dragon, and came back with Oh Look! The “Salad” They’re Sharing Is Just The Kind Of Seaweed Snack You Love! You Guys Have Similar Tastes In Snacks!

The Mens about to go in for eats

Rockstar and seaweed - I wonder how many times my mum pulled this one on me as a child

(There was much veg-shredding earlier when they “fed” the lions in that decades-old lai see-laced lettuce-feeding I even remember from my own childhood – over here my RMs would make a point to keep a bit of that veg in their wallet for luck. I did not ask to see what it looked like at the end of the year.)

Then we ate at the residents’ club house and watched the festivities through the floor-to-ceiling windows… They had chinese wayang stage performance too…

At the club house tree inside....

Mostly, it were a good day. Little Miss finally fell asleep for a bit, and so as not to wake her by getting in the car, I walked home (our apartment is a little further, this is actually not the clubhouse for our own development btw). Cuddled her for a good half hour before trying to put her down in her bed. Whereupon she woke up, all raring to go again.

Epilogue: A waitress comes over to play with Little Miss. I’m uncomfortable. Previously she was so-so with the baby when I first brought her over, which I’d done only because she’d observed my growing bump during pregnancy and so it was kind of Meet The Bump, Here She Is. Then other waiters start to make eye contact and smile/nod (and I’m ?? don’t recognize them at all) and then I realize I had put the lai see for when we leave on the table in full view. In fact, then I also realize today there are 7-8 waiters to serve this half-filled club house restaurant – that’s like, a waiter per table-and-a-half, two tables, at most. Usually it’s just 3-4 waiters for the whole place. A waiter I don’t recognize comes over with toothpicks. Comes back with even more toothpicks. Sigh.

It’s a fine line between politeness and Get Your Pushiness Out Of My Face. It’s not the money, it’s the feeling of being put upon. (Even our American pastor will good-naturedly mention his doorman who doesn’t open the door for you all year round until it’s CNY.) I would like to remember our regular servers, certainly if they had been remarkably helpful I would’ve remembered at some point other than CNY. They didn’t have to do that, be that pushy. But it says something about the general culture of living here, that they all believe they have to.