Hopefully I didn’t miss someone already starting this thread…
We’re doing an open house tomorrow. Keeping it simple this year…a little training, a little tea, one of my students is trying her hand at nian gao for snacks and a couple of demonstrations.
Is that the Mandarin for Gong Hei Fat Choy? I have no idea what it really means, but it’s the name of a fictitious attack from “College Saga”…
Kidding aside, that sounds fun!
yep.
‘good luck in the new year’ i think…but probably, ‘eat cow paddies on your aunties fat belly’ if you get the tones wrong 
i did a little chinese new year celebration at my school. had a good amount of people show up. we did our bad lion dancing (only been doing it a month). we didnt do anyhting to hard. then we did a basics demo. i brought the kids our and did some stuff with them, then a long fist form with a groupd of adults. then we just did about 10 or 12 forms. wasnt longer then 30 minutes. then we ate. and hung out for an hour. then me and a couple guys hung out until like 11 or so. it was fun. my first one i held. first time in 6 years, i collected info from other celebrations and at NYC. i think it went well. hope everyone else had a good one.
2 years ago as a grand opening for my first space, yu shan and a ton of his students came over and we did it up big…yu shan’s drumming and Metal Mantis and ‘Roy’ 
in the Lion were a big hit and everyone did forms and demo’s.
my first teacher was also there and he played uki as I threw him around
however, I have to admit the stress of our ‘first’ weighed on us even though we had a bang up party that night. so, we’re ‘just chillin’ this year…a little more relaxed in ourselves and ready to just show anyone interested who and what we are.
our lion dance is also bad. we’ve really only had one good lesson from yu shan and I basically have no sense of rythm so i’m not so good on the drum…we’ll probably not bring ‘ol greenie’ out tomorrow.
glad to hear someone else is as ‘fresh’ a lion team as we are.
actually, this year is the 10th anniversary of the new years where we gave my sifu a lion; fun story:
my teacher is very “western”, having grown up in the US, gone to Princeton, etc.; but in his heart, he’s also very old-time traditional Chinese - he just doesn’t push it with his students (most all of whom are western) and when I showed up, none of his students really knew anything at all about Chinese custums, what to do publicaly with your sifu, etc.; so for the first new years I went to, they only had this mini-lion head that the kids paraded around with (he’s very home-style, teaches out of his loft, etc.); after, when he found out I had done lion dancing for my previous teacher, he was like “oh, ok, you can do it with that head next year”; I was like, “riiight” to my self; so the next year, he reminded me about a month before - I was like “NFW”; so I get on the horn and get all the then seniors to cough up some cash, and, after some wrangling, we bought a really beautiful golden lion for the school
picture this: picking up a the lion head in Chinatown and driving around withit in the front seat…we got some interesting looks; then, the plan: keeping it under a blanket in the hallway and sneaking it into the back of the loft in the middle of the new year’s demo while sifu’s not watching; of course, right when we’re about to do it, he walks to the door where I and some other con-conspirators are standing, and tells everyone to sit down and watch the demo instead of loitering around the door; I have to tell him, to his face, “sifu, I have to stay here” or something equaly brilliant, basically loooking him dead in the face without backing down…I still get shivers from the look he gave me back, but then he must have seen something (probably total fear on my part) and he just let it go and walked away; so, I change my soiled underwear, and we smuggle in the lion to the back;
so we come out and do the dance; after, we present the lion to him; during the little speech my si jie gives, sifu’s sitting there looking really weird…stiff, even…afterwards, his wife tells me that he initially thought that we had borrowed the lion from another school (:eek: ), and that he was feeling totally ipoverished because we didn’t have our own; in other words, we TOTALLY surprised him cold - which, he later told me, was really the first time he had ever been caught unawares like that by soemthing his students did - so that was cool
so tonight, I gotta go dust the old head off again, 10 years later, wondering where the time has gone; this year it’s gonna be another first: my 2 1/2 year old son is going to see his dad hop around inside a big lion’s head for the first time…
Gung hei fat choy…
I have my first chinese new year here in Manila chinatown where i live..its very wild in every street are liondance groups (our school included though we are the only martial arts school doing liondance)..theres traffic,lots of people and its loud but everyone is happy…
san nin fai lok !
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Gung hei fat choy…
I have my first chinese new year here in Manila chinatown where i live..its very wild in every street are liondance groups (our school included )..theres traffic,lots of people and its loud but everyone is happy…
san nin fai lok !
great story CJ, thanks. 
Laukarbo, which one are you in the pic?
happy golden pig’s year.
there are 12 animals and 5 elements (metal, wood, water, fire, and earth).
Jin Mu Shui Fo Tu.
it is Jin Zhu Nian or golden pig year. only once in 60 (5x12) years or a cycle.
I will be travelling to Las Vegas.
[QUOTE=Oso;739956]great story CJ, thanks.
Laukarbo, which one are you in the pic?[/QUOTE]
the whitey:D
lol…
just wrapped up our open house. not too many walk-ins, but it was a great team building day for our school.
have some pictures I’ll upload later after I pull them off the camera
Xin Nian Kuai le to you all!! We have finished our second stress-filld day of lion dancing and have one more left. I hope everyone has a great year of the pig and good fortune to all.
yea, yu shan told me you guys had like 20 shows this weekend. i hope the lettuce was thick and plentiful.
Syin Nien Hao!!!
Happy New Year to everyone!!! We are also in the midst of “Lion Dance WEEK”,..lol’ I remember the very first Lion Dance we did in 1992,…only ‘one’ restaurant!,..LOL’! This year we will be totalling 12. I do not live near a Chinatown,..so, we have to send out flyers to the restaurants, and eat at ALL of them from time to time in order to do the Lion Dance there,..lol.’ Hope nobody breaks an ‘Ear’!,..hahahaha,(easy to do,..low ceilings) Have Fun! Li Ma-Keh
I am in Vegas.
there is a big display of a flower garden in Bellagio. and all you can eat dim sum.
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I am so stuffed.
there are dragon and lion dances in front of several casino’s and Chinatown.
I had very good time.
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