Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Photo: Jake Michaels.
In a San Francisco garage, Corey Chan and his team create giant, spectacular lions that lead the Lunar New Year festivities.

I’ve been thinking about how every culture has a tradition to ward off evil spirits. People have always had a sense that some things are just plain wrong. If they don’t know who to blame, they may invent monsters. And after they invent monsters, they need spirits that fight monsters.

Take, for example, the lions that scare off evil at Lunar New Year all around Asia.

This year, I enjoyed reading Miya Lee’s story at the New York Times about the artists who construct the fierce protector lions.

“Corey Chan’s San Francisco home looks like any other in the elevated neighborhood of Anza Vista: simple, two-storied, with large windows to let in sweeping views of the skyline and glimmering bay below.

“But when Chan, 63, opens his two-car garage, it’s like a portal to another world. Chinese lion heads of seemingly every color, size and style hang from the walls and ceiling. A five-foot tall dragon head, its fanged mouth agape, sits where one would expect a car. Brilliant pompoms, fake peaches and real spears, swords and axes rest near drying laundry.

“Chan grew up watching Chinese lion dances during Lunar New Year, and committed himself to learn each part of the craft, from the construction and repair of lions to the accurate performance of each move.  …

“ ‘I was hungry to learn,’ Chan said of the tradition, steeped in roughly a millennium of history and mythology. …

“Amiable and unassuming, Chan presents himself as a humble scholar, but he is also a deeply respected and knowledgeable teacher. He is the heritage director at Cameron House, a longstanding nonprofit in San Francisco’s Chinatown that serves the low-income and immigrant Asian American community. He is also the director of Kei Lun Martial Arts, which he joined at 18. Through his practice, he met the men who would come to make up his crew: Jeff Lee, Travis Lum and Thomas Chun. …

“Because information about lion dancing in English is scarce, Chan led a group of Kei Lun Martial Arts members on a research trip to China in 2000. They studied with skilled craftspeople in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong. …

“There, they learned the five-part process of making lion heads: building a bamboo skeleton, pasting on papier-mâché skin, painting, adding symbolic accouterments and, finally, bringing the lion to life through ceremony.

“In order to construct a lion frame, Chan and his crew cut bamboo into long, thin strips, which they heat with a candle or hot air gun to make pliable. They then bind the bent strips with about a thousand knots of paper tape. Building the bamboo skeleton is often the most difficult step. …

“Through their side business, Of Course Lion Source, which Chan likens to ‘a hobby that kind of went out of control,’ people from across the country send them Chinese lions and dragons to repair. They’ve also salvaged a severely dilapidated lion they found abandoned in a park in Oakland. (Both lions and dragons are meant to bring good fortune and ward off evil spirits; dragons are longer and require more performers.)

“ ‘Anybody that makes these things, prepares these things, they’re putting not just their time, they’re putting in their soul,’ Chan said. ‘A little bit of me goes into this.’ …

“The art form is tricky to make profitable. When asked about their business, the group laughed. With their commissions, which can range from $300 to $2,000, depending on a piece’s condition and customer specifications, they mostly break even in terms of labor and supply costs. …

“Before a Chinese lion can perform its first dance, it must be brought to life, or consecrated, through an eye-dotting ritual. The Rescue Squad uses a calligraphy brush dipped in muddy red cinnabar to awaken the lion’s sense organs.

“They dot the nose for smell, the tongue for taste, the ears for hearing, and place one on the horn and seven along the length of the lion’s body, representing the seven stars of the Big Dipper.

“The lion is then nearly ready to perform its public duty: scaring away evil spirits and jumping and retrieving red envelopes tied to heads of lettuce, bringing prosperity.”

More at the Times, here, including wonderful photos and videos.