Digital Heritage Website

This is the first time i create a website. Is a very good experience although the website design is not really good. But hopefully the next website can be must more better. This website (www.gykho.com) that I had created is about our Malaysia culture heritage, Lion Dance(Southern).

Beside starting to create the website i had do some research for what are the information that i need to import to the website. While doing the research i had found some interesting thing about lion dance and some deeper meaning of lion dance costume.

Everyone nowadays enjoy lion dance as a performance or a sport. Lion dance actually come from a legend which actually have different version but the most common one was happen in a village in China when all the villagers are busy decorate their home to welcome the brand new year and the was a monster name "nian"(which is chinese word means year) which come out every end of the year to attack and terrorized the village, it horrified and ate men and animals. After awhile, the villagers were fed up with the beast thus they came together with an idea. The idea they have was to make a beast from paper mache and some noise making musical instrument like gongs, drums and cymbals to scare away the beast. The idea they had worked thus the villagers celebrated with firecrackers. Thus the belief of lion dancing is to bring good luck and prosperity while driving away the evil. 

For other version, you can have visit to this website (http://www.kungfusupply.nl/lion%20dance/lion_dance.htm).

Beside that the element of the Southern lion dance costume also had their own meaning.

Horn 

Southern lions are divided into Hok San and Fat San lions. The former has a curved horn while the latter sports a pointed one. In general, the lion’s horn wards off evil beings.

Head

The head is made out of papier mâché, and the movement of the eyelids enhances the lion’s vitality and liveliness. For the Northern lions, a red bow on its head indicates a male lion, or a green bow to represent female. The head comes in four sizes: one, two, three, four (four being the smallest).

Mirror (forehead)

The mirror dispels negative energy as evil spirits would be frightened by their own reflection.

Mouth 

The Hok San lion, always smiling, has a straight mouth and short tail while the Fat San lion looks more aggressive with a curved mouth and long tail.

Movement

The lion usually walks back and forth, almost like a zigzag path to confuse evil spirits. The Buddha (Dai Fut) teases the lion to lie down, roll and jump.

Body & colour 

The length of the lion varies between 1.5m and 1.8m. Lion types can be identified according to the Chinese classic ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms’. Liu Bei (‘Auspicious Lion’) is yellow with white beard and fur. Guan Gong (‘Awakened Lion’) is red with black bristles and a long beard. Zhang Fei (‘Fighting Lion’) has a black face and black bristles. Other lion colours also include green (Zhao Yun), orange (Huang Zhong) and white (Ma Chao).

Expression 

Lion dance portrays eight different expressions: happiness, rest, anger, intoxication, mischief, suspicion, ecstasy and surprise.

As a chinese we need to understand what is the meaning of our great culture heritage.

Maybe some of the younger generation will think that in this modern world we need to change to become a modern person. Actually lion dance can be very modern as well. They are actually some lion dance performance that combine with modern element. Like their costume are combine with led light and glow in the dark. Beside that, instate of using traditional instrument, they even use pop music as their music.

led light lion dance

Glow in dark lion dance

hip hop lion dance with pop music