The God of Prosperity has arrived!! It sounds nicer in Cantonese, right?

At first, I thought I would not be writing a Chinese New Year post because I have been under the weather for the past couple of days (blame it on the awful weather here in Ipoh) but now my fuzzy head has cleared a little and it doesn’t feel as heavy anymore so here is a customary Chinese New Year post.

Over the weekend since Friday, I have been dropping by to Kinta City in the evenings to shoot some videos. On Friday, 23rd Jan, 2009, there was a double lion dance. I have watched plenty of lion dances already all these years and if you remember, I mentioned that we used to have lion and dragon dances at home on the first day of Chinese New Year as well.

But in the lion dance performance by this martial arts troupe, there was a drunkard lion, which I have never seen before. View my YouTube Channel for the videos.

Then on Saturday, 24th Jan, 2009, there was an acrobatic performance by an acrobatic troupe from China. One of the funniest moments was when one of the male acrobats liken himself to William Tell and asked members of the audience to hold a balloon on the head, with the mouth and even one guy had to hold it between his thighs.

The acrobat would blow a dart from his blowpipe to hit and burst the balloon. In this photo, the acrobat was blindfolded and the boy, who was his helper, rang an ice cream bell in front of the balloon to help the acrobat to focus on his target. Once again, I have these on video, which you have to click over to my YouTube Channel.

There is a performance as well at 8pm at Kinta City centre stage tonight but I have no idea yet what it would be. Stay tuned. And once again, Kung Hei Fatt Choy!!!

Boy, it really is trying working with a crappy internet connection. It took me such a long time to upload my videos on YouTube but thankfully, it’s all completed now and I could proceed with blogging!

I was in Kinta City (yes, AGAIN) on Sunday, 11th January, 2009, to shoot videos of this Chinese Orchestra performance which started at 8pm. The show lasted almost an hour but I left after 30 minutes. Why? It was not entertaining at all.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I do not know how to appreciate Chinese instrumental music. In fact, I do own a few CDs of music of this genre and enjoy them thoroughly. The thing is, I have watched this orchestra a few times already, all courtesy of Kinta City if memory serves me right and each time, these musicians have their eyes stuck to their music sheet. They have no expression, no smiles, no interaction with the audience. In short, there was no showmanship.

Also, some of the pieces were solo or duets. The rest of the musicians sat at their places like dunggus or they whispered to each other. They should incorporate all the instruments in each piece or to arrange their pieces in such a way as to end with a duet, and then solo so that the rest of the musicians could retire backstage.

Maybe my standard is too high but I believe that if you are going to perform to the public and being paid for it, you MUST have at least a certain “standard”, right? Forgive me if I am too harsh but of the times that I have watched this orchestra, I see no improvement at all.

And you know what? I just went through the Kinta City Chinese New Year 2009 program again and realized that they have planned shows which are exactly the same as last Chinese New Year. I may be wrong and will only know after I have watched them all but I noticed their Chinese Drum Performance and Happy Prosperity CNY Dance.

I am looking forward to video the Chinese Drum Performance, though. I love it and have watched it a few times but never shot a video of it before. Hopefully, I would be able to make my way to Kinta City this Friday, 16th January, 2009.

Oh yes, I almost forgot… when I was leaving the building, I bumped into this guy. He was shopping with his mother. So cute. And so odd. I have never seen him before all my life and suddenly saw him twice within six months. Heh!

I purposely went to Kinta City last evening to video their Wushu demonstration which was held in conjunction with Chinese New Year 2009. Although the programme sheet stated that this series of events will start on Friday, 9th January, 2009, I don’t know why the emcee mentioned that yesterday, 10th January, 2009 was the first day of these Chinese cultural perfomances. Perhaps the events were cancelled on Friday (and I thought I missed them) or maybe it was a slip of the emcee’s tongue.

Anyway, the show, which started at 8pm, kicked off with a few sets of Wushu demonstrations. I liked it that we were not made to wait for long minutes between sets, like what happened during the Chrismas shows in Ipoh Parade last year.

However, there was a couple of boys who sparred with each other in slow motion as if afraid that they would chop off each others hand accidentally. Basically, they looked like they did not have confidence with their equipment.

Then there was a Tai Chi performance. It was slow, but heck, it’s Tai Chi.

Then finally, there was dragon dance. It’s too bad that this wasn’t included in the programme sheet so many people did not know about, although the emcee did mention it at the start of the show.

Unfortunately, by the end of the dragon dance show, I ran out of memory on my camera. But luckily, I have backup! These still shots below were taken with my iPhone and boy, am I glad that they turned out “not bad” worrrr….

This time, I was there slightly early and managed to get a good spot on the second row. I was standing, which was fine with me, but it was jam packed and I couldn’t move AT ALL. What pissed me off was when suddenly the couple who sat in front of me suddenly STOOD UP whilst I was recording. Argghh WHY??? Spoilt my dragon dance video!

The dragon dance was very fast paced towards the end which was not captured on video but I am sure you can see the flurry of colours in the series of photos below.

By the way, all these were performed by the martial arts troupe of SMJK (C) Sam Tet, Ipoh, Perak. They perform lion and dragon dances during Chinese New Year or on other auspicious occasions. We used to engage them for lion and dragon dances at our house yearly on the first day of Chinese New Year but had to stop after adopting Snoopy and Dino.

If you are looking for a martial arts troupe to perform lion and/or dragon dance in Ipoh, do support the troupe. You can go to the school to make enquiries.

I did a search and the listed address with the Ministry of Education is No. 5, Jalan Gereja, 30300 Ipoh, Perak. Tel. No. 605-2545457. It’s so weird, all my life, I thought their address was Jalan Sultan Idris Shah. Guess we learn something new every day.