the dance so far ..

Today is chu si (fourth day of CNY), and also the second 'working day' for our noobish lion dance troupe =P. Have been very tired since... since i can't even remember when i'm not tired. I even forgot what day it is sometimes ^^"

First day.. (29th January)
Started out our very first kai gong day last Sunday, 1st day of CNY. I woke up like 4am O.o . Haha.. not that i'm very excited bout it or anything.. maybe because i slept too much before that =P. Met up at Maluri LRT station at 7.30am (blog-surfed until it's time to leave ^^"), and went on to perform at one shop and four houses for the rest of the day. Just 5 locations.. but we only went back at 5pm. Don't ask me how.. time just seems to fly so damn fast.

It was our first day after all, and we're still noobs, so needless to say we're far far from what you can expect from a 'real' lion dance troupe. As in, we barely learned for a week in total! What else do you expect? O.o Still we just went ahead la.. crap performance also crap performance la haha =P. But it was fun.. especially those little kids who seem just so damn amused by lion dances. Damn fun to play with them haha..

Shit happens though. At the shop we performed at, they want us to cai gao qing (err.. pluck high greens? haha). Which means we're supposed to do the front-guy-stand-on-back-guy's-shoulders thingy (tie luo han i think? forgot what it's called). Shit. Coach said we're not supposed to do that until Wednesday (today) but what to do.. they want us to do it. So firstly it's me who's jumping. Even though i couldn't do it the previous day, but then nobody else tried to do it before (we're severely lacking practice). Maybe it was because i jumped too much the previous few days.. or that i'm subconsciously afraid of heights, but my legs went soft after i climbed onto the shoulders. Tried to stand up, but lost my balance and jumped back down. Couldn't go on coz my legs are really hurting from the training, so Chua took over. Tough luck, he couldn't do it also, even fell down and dented the lion O.o . So in the end we didn't do the tie luo han la.. >.<

Second day.. (1st February)
Today.. our second day. 4 more houses, and two warehouses (for the same boss though). No mishaps this time, even managed to do the tie luo han.. but not me la, it was the deaf/mute guy the other day. He's bout 5kg lighter than me.. looks like i too fat liao lol ^^". He's taller than me so Coach didn't expect him to be lighter lor. Most of the performances were just us (as the lions) going around peeling every single damn mandarin orange that they placed around the house/warehouse. ^^"

The warehouses were our second job.. and we're supposed to perform at the new and old warehouses (took us 2 whole hours for that ^^"). I was one of the lions for the old warehouse, and i've never ever cai qing before (er.. it's just peel oranges), i was told to peel and EAT the mandarin oranges. Like, if there were one or two nvm la.. but SIX. Bloody six oranges i had to peel and EAT O.o . I 'danced' to the first orange, peeled and stuffed it into my mouth, move on to the second one, stuff half and kept half in my pocket (i didn't know where else to put ^^"), and the next few oranges i gave to my ass to eat. Wen Chieh (my ass =P) swallowed a total of three oranges.. with the seeds and all O.o . It's only after i cai all the qing already that i was told to just peel the oranges only and leave them there. Damn.. now they tell me.. after i developed mandarinorangophobia already >.<

After the warehouses we went on to the 3 houses left for the evening (the other one was done in the morning - there's a mini lion dance by the owner's kid at the apartment ^^ so cute..). Nothing much, just the usual routine. Go around peeling every single damn mandarin oranges they placed. There'll be an ang pau under each orange, which we're supposed to take after we cai those qings. I was one of the lion heads for the last house, and either they bought too many oranges for the new year, or they thought the lions love to eat oranges so damn much. I wasn't counting how many oranges was i peeling.. it just seems endless. There's an orange on top of the TV, an orange on every table in their house, oranges all the way up the stairs, oranges on every single bed, they even placed an orange on a really big egg-shaped ceramic thingy O.o . At the last count by Wen Chieh (my ass, again =P), i peeled SIXTEEN oranges. And we had two lions going around peeling them (which makes the total more than 30! and this is just one house!). Thank god i wasn't supposed to eat them.. O.o

PS - Tomorrow Wong and Chua start working edi.. and they won't be joining us for the lion dance (they were the 'best' we had =/). Looks like us IMU noobies (me, Esther and Wen Chieh) have to make use of whatever little stuff we know.. ^^". Hope we can survive tomorrow.. i'm already dead tired after today's performances.. back still aching from bending over too long (the consequences of being the ass)

P.PS - funny thing.. someone ended up on my blog searching for 'lion dance' haha ^^. The name's don, and he intro-ed himself as a lion-gila fella lol. Damn lot of pictures at his blog, and there's videos of how 'real' lion dance looks like too (when i say damn lot of pics, i really mean damn lot). A new member of 'Khuan Loke' in PJ, who got 2nd at the national level last year ^^ (when only can we reach that standard..). Funny how you can meet new people on the internet hehe..