Happy Chinese New Year!

Lion dance is part of Chinese New Year celebration. There are Chinese families who would pay for Lion dance performance at their residence or business premises. Whenever my family passes by houses with lion dance, my dad would stop the car nearby and we would watch. Mostly, we only watch the backside of lions besides the crowd. This Chinese New Year, I was lucky to watch a lion dance ‘performance’ at a business premise.

Lion dance is a form of traditional dance in the Chinese culture where the performers mimic the lion’s movements in lion’s costume. There will be at least ten people involved. Two dancers will form the head and the body of the Lion. Others will provide the music. Each will be playing the drum, cymbals and gong. Two people will guide the movement of the lions.

The Lion dance is suppose to chase away evil spirit and bring good luck and fortune.

The owner of the residence or business premise would prepare a plate filled will lettuce, cabbage and mandarin oranges for the lion to consume. The ‘lion’ would take its time to cut and arrange the lettuce, cabbage and oranges nicely. In return, the lion would receive a red packet at reward.

I don’t see the Lion dance losing its value in time to come as there are many Chinese who still believe that lion dance brings auspiciousness to their business and family. It may be affected by the world economic crisis as their reward for each dance may cost as much as RM500 especially on the first day of Chinese New Year.

A Brand New Year, A Brand New Experience!

This is the first week of 2009 and classes for the new semester has started!

Today is the first lesson for EDU 3217 Teaching the Language of Drama. During the last semester, the online assignment was to participate in forums. This semester, i am required to keep a blog! Well, reading other people's blog has been my past time activity but i have never thought of writing one myself as i have a little fear of writing. I did not know what to write, did not know where to start and i do not know how to write beautifully while other people's writing are always very captivating. Now that it has becomed a course requirement, no matter what, I have to start blogging!

Although Dr Edwin called it "A Dummies Guide to Theatre", I have enjoyed the lectures, facts and overview. It was very informative! Usually, I do not think much about the course I will take because I do not want to have any expectations which are too high or too low. I prefer to just enter class and let the lecture impress me. Most lecturers are fantastic, they reveal how knowledgable and experienced they are. My mind is starting to wonder. Back to theatre, the brief overview of the history of theatre really interest me. We see the development of theatre, from Greek theatre to modern drama and the changes from secular theatre to morality plays to Theatre of the Absurd? It is sad that theatre is not enjoyed by everyone anymore, including myself. I hope that will change :)

I hope that I will really learn a lot from this course. I do not want to study it just for exam purposes. A talk with my cousin who is an English teacher gave me a new thought about learning. He can still remember what he learnt in his psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic class and how functional grammar came about. I'm in awe! My memory had to work so hard to recall although I have just learnt those last semester!

It will be great if i can remember what I have learnt in my university years as long as i can. Wouldn't it be great if my excitement after today's lecture will last?