The Washington Post-How the annual lion dance draws Chinese Americans back to DCs Chinatown

2024-01-30T22:02:22.249Z

Harry Guey-Lee doesn’t go into D.C.’s Chinatown much these days. Although he grew up there, he mostly returns for occasional Washington Wizards games.

But every winter, the same activity draws him back: the lion dance at the Lunar New Year parade.

The performance, a vibrant spectacle meant to scare away evil spirits and bestow good luck, brings together Chinese Americans in the historic part of downtown where many of their parents and grandparents had lived and socialized. Year after year, families that have scattered to the suburbs reconnect with their heritage in a place that long ago ceased being a community focal point.

“We care about the little bit of connection we still have to our past and our parents and the cultural traditions that are part of Chinese culture,” said Guey-Lee, who lives in Silver Spring, Md. “It’s a little bit, but we hold on to that little bit.”

Guey-Lee, 73, is among roughly 50 members of the Chinese Youth Club who will step to a beat, play instruments and wave flags as part of a traditional lion dance at the parade Sunday. While several other lion dance troupes will also perform, the CYC’s team is the oldest in the District.

The dance is a family tradition for some. Guey-Lee’s father played the drums during the early years of the parade in the 1940s before passing the torch to his sons, who carried kung fu weapons, served as the lion’s tail and played the cymbals.

Now, the children of Guey-Lee and his brother also participate — and teach the next generation. People of all ages have a role: Toddlers carry flags, teens and young adults dance in the lion costumes, and older adults hold banners, play instruments and hand fortune cookies to spectators.

The origins of the lion dance, which dates at least from the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618-906), are disputed. One story tells of villagers scaring away a monster with an animal costume, firecrackers, and pots and pans. Another recounts an emperor who dreamed of an animal and ordered that it be re-created for festivals.

The resulting dance, which has roots in martial arts and is traditionally taught to boys, is an athletic endeavor that takes significant energy. During the parade’s half-hour performance, dancers rotate in and out of the lion costumes to give each person a break — especially from carrying the wooden heads, which can weigh up to 10 pounds.

“If you just jump in there and try to go 100 percent, you’re going to get tired really fast,” said Kevin Lee, Guey-Lee’s nephew and one of the co-directors of this year’s dance.

Technique is important, and the performers under each lion’s head and tail are instructed to make their movements lively, Lee said. The instrumentalists and dancers work in tandem, with the music cuing specific steps and the person under the lion’s tail following the dancer under the head.

The team rehearses eight to 10 times before the parade, with younger dancers practicing first at each session. When the older dancers get their turn, instructors teach more advanced moves and critique form. The performers do squatting exercises to prepare for some of their movements during the show.

Ada Stuyvenberg, 12, said the hardest part of being a lion in the parade is, well, acting like a real lion.

“You really have to do very quick movements, all while being smooth,” said Ada, who lives in Rockville, Md. “You can’t be like a robot.”

Her mom, Daphne Pee, learned about the dance troupe from a neighbor last year and was thrilled to find the kind of Chinese American community that she didn’t get to experience while growing up in Montgomery County. Now she plays cymbals in the parade while her children dance.

Pee, 46, said the activity helps her children stay connected to their Chinese culture.

“For the parents,” she said, “we’re trying to keep that alive in them.”

The old-timers ensure the troupe stays true to traditions, like “dotting the eyes” of each new lion head by dabbing red ink on various parts to bring it to life. When the team members leave a business after dancing there to bless it, they back out as a sign of respect, rather than turning away from the audience.

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But in other ways, much has changed since Chinese immigrants established the CYC in Chinatown in 1939. When Guey-Lee’s father immigrated from Taishan, a city in China’s Guangdong province, the organization was one of few groups offering structured socialization opportunities for the neighborhood’s young people.

The CYC functioned like a Chinese YMCA, with volleyball tournaments and Chinese classes, among other activities. Each Lunar New Year, the organization’s lion dancers spent hours going store to store to bless Chinatown’s businesses while their owners lit firecrackers and gifted the performers cash in red envelopes.

Jack Lee, Guey-Lee’s brother, joined this tradition as a preteen and remains involved in the dance troupe decades later. While he doesn’t feel as Chinese as he would like, he said performing is a way of “staying connected to Chinatown, as well as staying connected to my culture.”

Unlike cities like New York and Toronto, D.C.’s Chinatown no longer feels particularly Chinese. Chinese architectural motifs still decorate shops and an archway celebrating the relationship between D.C. and its sister city of Beijing looms over H Street, but few Chinese immigrants live there.

Many residents began to move out of the area in the 1960s in search of better housing and business opportunities and lower crime rates, according to a report from the University of Maryland. The area became the focus of government renewal projects in the 1970s and ’80s, and after the sports arena now known as Capital One Arena was built in 1996, shops and restaurants catering to spectators flooded the area. Many long-standing businesses were priced out.

Lee and Guey-Lee felt those changes personally: The townhouse their parents lived in was razed for the arena’s construction. The neighborhood, Guey-Lee said, is “obviously a shell of what it once was 35, 40 years ago.”

Most people in Chinatown participated in the lion dance back then, he said, and attracting new performers was easy. Now, it’s harder to spread the word. The D.C. area’s Chinese Americans have scattered to the suburbs and don’t have as many organic opportunities to meet. Children are busier than in previous generations, and those who live outside the city need parents to drive them to dance practices.

Wally Lee, whose father was one of CYC’s founders, said many children a few generations removed from the immigrant experience feel more American than Chinese and may not know about the lion dance.

“It’s only through word of mouth or being involved in our club where they see it in person and they hopefully will have an interest to try it,” said Wally Lee, 75, who is not related to Jack Lee and his family. “So it’s tougher than back in the old days.”

The CYC tries to meet children where they are, recruiting players on the organization’s sports teams to the dance troupe and sharing the program at schools’ “international day” events. The lion dancers also perform at other events throughout the year.

Kevin Lee, 37, said the performance can be an avenue for young people to engage with their heritage in ways that feel less like work than learning Cantonese or Mandarin.

“There’s definitely Chinese school and things like that,” he said. “This is another way into the culture.”

The dance is also open to people without Chinese heritage. Organizers said they welcome anyone who wants to experience their traditions and have had people of other backgrounds join the group.

This year, one family of lion dancers is from Peru.