All About Chinese Culture

While in Guangzhou, Amy and Dave recommended a park to visit to learn all about the Chinese culture called the Lingnan Impression Garden.

There were many traditional Chinese performances to watch and the whole area represented a traditional Chinese community with homes, temples and theatres.

When we arrived, a friendly man pointed us in the direction of a theater. A show was about to begin! There were six different dances performed.

In the beginning of the first dance, there were female dancers dressed up in yellow who danced around and played the tambourine.

Next to come onstage was a male dancer dressed up as a rooster. He walked around, as he could not dance because he was holding the huge rooster costume.

The last to come on were the dancers dressed up as chicks. They jumped through hoops which looked hard.

The rooster is in the Chinese zodiac, so it is important to their culture.  Roosters are considered to be observant. hardworking, resourceful, courageous and talented.  For more information on the Chinese zodiac, click here.

The next dance had 2 lions, one was yellow and the other was red.  In the Chinese culture, lions are a symbol of strength and power.

It was really neat because there were two people under each lion and it was even more awesome because they were doing tricks! They stood up on things like large balls and a raised platform.

Later on in the routine, a dragon came on and went around in circles.

The dragon symbolizes absolute authority.  It represents the emperor.  This dance reminded me of when we celebrate Chinese New Year at school.

Then boatmen came on and pretended to be in a dragon boat race.

I have learned about dragon boating in the History Museum in Hong Kong.  One of the ethnic groups, the Hoklo people, used to send a bride to the  groom’s house in a dragon boat.

We have seen many dragons and lions in front of many buildings such as the lions at the front at the Forbidden City. (For more information about the Forbidden City, check out my dad’s post tomorrow)

The third, and my favourite, dance started with girls dancing with balls in their hands.

All of the girls

They are dancing

One of the girls

They were wearing white and red shirts and red pants. They danced for a few minutes by themselves, and then came my favourite part. Two people came on…

and did some amazing tricks on silks in the air!

Ever since I first saw a performance with silks, I have wanted to try it.  Maybe I can make some with my bed sheets!

In the next dance there were girls using leaves as props. I liked the dance because their costumes were beautiful and the dance was about nature.

The dancers

Going in a circle

All lined up

The fourth one was amazing! There were male dancers and two of them were doing awesome lifts.

All of the dancers

Close up

One of the lifts

Nice!

The dancers

They are pretending that there is fire in their hands

Another one of the lifts

Awesome!

The man is blowing fire!

At one point, one of them balanced a giant hoop on his head with the other dancer on top and then they spun it!

The last one started with girls, in beautiful pink costumes, collecting rice.  All over China and Southeast Asia, rice is one of the most important resources.  Out of rice, one can make many things such as noodles, rice paper and rice crackers.  One can also sun-dry the husks and use them for fuel for cooking.

Later on in the dance, two men and two women came on. The women climbed up ropes and had to hold on really tight, because the men at the bottom were spinning them really quickly! It was amazing.

Next, we went to see a traditional shadow puppet show.  Through some research, I found out more about them.

The puppet show tradition originated over 2000 years ago during the Han Dynasty. The most popular story of where it originated from goes like this:  Emperor Han was very upset about his favorite concubine’s death. The Emperor’s adviser was looking for ways to cheer him up so he could continue ruling.  One day, the adviser saw some children playing with parasols.  The shadows that they were making gave the advisor the idea to perform a shadow puppet show for the emperor.  That night, he invited the emperor to the courtyard and performed the shadow puppet show.  It made the Emperor happy again and he continued ruling.

When we arrived at the theater, the first thing we saw was the stage.  There was a white screen with a rock and leaves projected onto it.

Behind the screen, there was a light. The puppeteers were behind the screen and used puppets back there to make shadows on the screen. The performance was so funny! It was about a bird…

who was trying to eat a turtle…

“Hello? Anybody home? I want to eat you!” says the bird! 🙂

Maybe if I do some tai chi, the turtle will come out…

but the turtle hid in it’s shell and then ran away. Later, it came back onto the rock and started snapping at the bird! Then the bird flew away…

To learn how to make your own paper puppets, click here.
For ideas on how to make the shadows with the light, click here.

The last show we saw was in the Chinese opera house.  Everyone was performing dances.

Wow! Great jump!

Nice costumes!

Some of the dancers

Pretty!

After all of the shows, we walked around the area and looked inside some of the family temples. Individual families would build special temples to honor their ancestors, and then they are opened up for others to come and worship their ancestors as well.

We also noticed a section called “Catch fish”. It turned out to be a large pool with hundreds of goldfish in them. One can go in and catch as many fish as they would like and take them home. I think this is a great idea, because if someone would like a pet fish, they can catch it themselves and keep it.

This cultural park reminded me of a combination between the Distillery District and Ontario Place back at home in Canada.

Overall, everything was amazing, especially learning about the Chinese culture in an awesome and fun way.