Chinese Wealth God

Chinese Wealth God or God of Fortune (财神）is one of the highly demand 'Mingling Artiste" during the Lunar New Year period. It is forever one of the most popular items that is requested by our clients to usher good luck and prosperity.You can easily witness the Chinese Wealth God roving around shopping malls during this auspicious period of the year.

Not only the Chinese welcomed the Wealth God. Many other races also loved the Wealth God!

Event with Ong Lei (王雷)

It was a great pleasure that I have the chance to host in various getais (歌台) and events.

One of the most exciting encounter is that I am able to meet different talents from all walks of life.
I met 王雷 Ong Lei while Hosting for Long Quan Sports Association's 11th Anniversary Celebration held on 2 Jan 2010! Ong Lei is a 3F (friendly, funny and famous) singer in Singapore and South East Asia countries .

Chinese Fan Calligraphy

Did Chinese Fan Calligraphy for a Janpanese Company's Dinner and Dance's pre-event activities today at Fairmont Hotel Singapore.Calligraphy on Chinese fan is one of the popular event items for Company's Dinner and Dance, Corporate Events, Cultural Events and Especially the Lunar New Year that is around the corner..
Whenever I was engaged by event companies for pre-dinner activites, my most pleasure moment is meeting my fellow pre-dinner events comrades who are being hired for the same show. One of my comrades is the renowned Mr Welles Tan the one and only caricaturist in Singapore who is capable of using both his left and right hand when sketching. Mr Welles is able to sketch 2 different characters using both his hands at the same time. Where to find such genius in the universe?? I've engaged Mr Welles for various shows and one of the most memorable one is for our Lion Dance Centre's secretary cum treasurer cum events coordinator cum our cutie pie the Singapore's renowned host and most famous female singer Lee Pei Fen's (李佩芬)21st Birthday celebration held on 9.12.08 at The Pines...The birthday girl and the invited guests were very delighted to have Mr Welles for the pre-dinner event as he protrayed a professional image and even stay another extra hour as the demand for his sketching is over whelming....Well Done Mr Welles.

Some Special Green in Lion Dance

The setting of the ‘Green’ (青) in Lion Dance performance have many types and patterns, for related opening ceremony or Chinese New Year, the ‘Green’ (青) for Chinese restaurant was commonly set in ‘Crab Green’ --蟹青, which related to their business (Crab is one of the popular Chinese Cuisine).For Supermarket wise, we use “Five Luck Coming to You” (五福临门), for rice merchandiser or warehouse companies which not welcoming the rats that always spoilt their good stocks, we usually using “Snake Green” (蛇青) because rats always scared snakes.

There are lot more unique Greens in lion dance performance which you should be seldom seen them.

This is ‘Cheers with the Deity’ (八仙敬酒)Encounter the Hero under the Moon (月下访英雄)One of the very unique and hardly seen Green --- “9 Segment Formation” (九子连环青)

Advance Level Lion Dance

In advance level of lion dance performance, means more interesting stuffs to be seen, thus the props using in lion dance performance will be more complex. The most common performance was lion dancing on the wooden poles, in Chinese is called 梅花桩 which means ‘Poles of Plum Blossom. It was commonly seen in the present lion dance competitions.

Chinese pottery chair is one of the prop.

On Chinese bench.
Even on n Chinese Claypot! Haahaa! I will tell you the story about lion dance in Chinese Claypot in my future posting.
The even more advance level: Using combinations of different props!

Plucking the Green in Lion Dance . 采青

To make the performance of plucking the green in lion dance much more interesting, the ‘Green’ (or the “food” for the lion) had been designed in various formations. The design of the ‘Green’s formation is also used to test the skills of the lion dancers. There were many type of ‘Green’ Formations and given in many different names.
"五福临门青"(Five Prosperity Green)is one of the common Green formations in various commercial events.
"仙人指路青"(Deity's Guidance Green)
"蜈蚣青"(Centipede Green)
"北斗七星阵" (Seven Northern Stars Formation)

Plucking the Green in Lion Dance . 采青

Usually, after the lion dance performance for either Chinese New Year or opening ceremony, the related party will pay us the fees, other than events booking.

In traditional and standard lion dance way, the payment will put in the Chinese Red package (红包袋) and tie with green vegetables and then put them on the floor or hang them on bamboo .
All of us see this ‘Lion’ as a live animal; hence we let it ‘eat’ its ‘food’ in an animal’s habit, which was the reason. At the end of the performance, the lion will ‘eat’ it ‘food’, the name given of this ‘food’ is called “青” in Chinese Character, in English is called “Green” while we translate directly.

In pure stage lion dance performances we may not see the lion do any ‘food eating action’, but it will happen commonly during Chinese New Year events and Opening Ceremony.

The ‘food eating action’ in lion dance performance in Chinese word is called “采青”, means “Plucking the Green”, we believe this will bring lucks to everyone especially the related parties.