Jimu News trainee reporter Li Yang
In the cold season, TengXian in Wuzhou, Guangxi Province, has no connection with the mid-winter, the sun is shining, the trees are green, and the scene of the southern country is full of vitality.
Deng Minghua, the 78-year-old veteran leader of the Xuanzhou Awakening Lion Regiment, is dressed in a Panlong Chinese-style gown, with gray medium-long hair tied back, a lean figure, and his eyes are like a torch.
He drove his motorcycle along the path through banana groves and fields until he saw a ferry port. A vintage ferry is waiting for passengers.
No bridge was built, and the ferry was taken from the county seat to Xuanzhou Island
"In front of you is Xuanzhou Island, where the lion dance in Fujian County rises." In the heart of the river, a narrow island is hidden in a verdant green.
The motorcycle got on the ferry, and the river breeze blew the flowers. The boatman loosened the cable, the sound of Dada's motor sounded, and the ferry started, breaking through the blue waves of the Xun River and sailing towards Xuanzhou.
This is a road that Deng Minghua can go back and forth with his eyes closed, he grew up in Xuanzhou, where he set up the Xuanzhou Lion Awakening Group, and led the male lion teenagers on the island to break a place in the southern lion world for the Tengxian lion dance. Now that he is nearing old age, he has stepped down as the leader of the lion regiment and moved to the county with his family, and does not often return to the island.
Many of the male lion teenagers who once followed him have become the mainstay of the southern lion world, and they are also teaching the spirit of awakening the lion to the new generation of male lion teenagers.
Deng Minghua, 78, is on Xuanzhou Island
Dreaming of Xuanzhou Island
Genting, Malaysia, 2004. The venue is brightly lit, the audience is full of people, and a lion dance competition of the highest level in the world, the sixth "Genting Cup" World Lion King Championship, is being held.
14-year-old lion head Deng Binguang and 17-year-old lion tail Deng Jing'an slowly walked towards the arena. Deng Binguang was very nervous, his hands were trembling slightly, and his palms were covered with beads of sweat. Team leader Deng Minghua shouted from the side: "You should train as usual, and the audience will support you." But Deng Binguang couldn't hear what the leader was saying, and kept thinking in his mind, "Can you not play" and "what to do if you make a mistake."
The sound of gongs and drums sounded in his ears, and the white-bearded golden lion ran to the arena, but Deng Minghua turned and walked to the outside, not daring to watch this performance that he had seen countless times during training.
They are a complete team of peasant lions from a small place that was once unknown in the lion dance world, Teng County, Wuzhou, Guangxi.
The two Cultures are of the same origin, not to mention Wuzhou, which once belonged to Guangdong. Although the Wuzhou lion dance is not as famous as the lion dance in Foshan, Guangdong, it has been passed down from generation to generation, and the folk are still prosperous, and they have not broken the fire. There are many versions of the origin of the lion dance, and the version circulated in Fujian County is that the TengXian lion dance originated from the Sui and Tang Dynasties, following the legend of expelling the "Nian Beast". When the "Nian Beast" appeared, the gongs and drums sounded in unison, and the lions danced to drive away the "Nian Beast". Since then, at the end of every year and the beginning of the year, the ancestors have used lion dances to pray for good luck.
In 1997, the films of Huang Feihong, Huo Yuanjia and Fang Shiyu swept the streets. These martial arts films always culminate in lion dances. There is a classic line in "Huang Feihong No. 3: Lion King Battle": Lion King Battle Conference, when the Azure Fireworks are fired, when Li Hongzhang is killed. This line directly links the lion dance and the fate of the country. According to the introduction of the lion group, the repeated use of lion dance elements in the film represents the vision of Chinese not the sick man of East Asia, but also a symbol of nationalism.
In that year, Deng Minghua and others established the Xuanzhou Awakening Lion Troupe on the basis of the Xuanzhou martial arts class and recruited the first batch of students. From the age of five or six to the age of twelve or thirteen, these trainees are the more mischievous children on the island.
Xuanzhou Island is the seat of the Xuanzhou Village Committee of Tangbu Town, Tengxian County, located on the Xun River, the main stream of the Pearl River, the island is 5 kilometers long and 1 kilometer wide, and is the second largest island in Guangxi. The island is surrounded by water on all sides, surrounded by bamboo, and in the center of the island is a patch of green cash crops.
Deng Binguang rarely returned to Xuanzhou Island after he became an adult, but he never forgot the wildflowers and wild grasses and rocky beaches on the island, "No matter how well built the park is, it is not as good as Xuanzhou Island." Unfortunately, now that the dam has been built, the beach has been flooded. ”
Although the children are greedy, the training is unambiguous, the sky is just dark, and the children who usually lie in bed are willing to get up, run with everyone, and practice basic skills.
Nowadays, the Tengxian Xuanzhou Awakening Lion Group opens summer vacation classes every year. In the venue, write down the daily training time in chalk
Zhu Jinsheng, 13, is in a period of rebellion, does not love to read, and his parents are difficult to discipline. He loves to watch lion dances and skips class. The school was right next to the lion dance training ground, and whenever he heard the sound of gongs and drums, his heart flew out of the window. Once, Zhu Jinsheng also jumped on the plum blossom pile after the lion dance team members trained. Seeing him bouncing around very flexibly, Deng Minghua stopped him: "You come and practice lion dance with me!" This sentence changed the trajectory of Zhu Jinsheng's life.
In 1998, 8-year-old Deng Binguang also joined the Lions. He is a well-known mischievous ghost in the village, who will jump from trees with a few children during the flood; when he returns home, he will not go through the main door, but will climb over the wall to enter... When he was 7 years old, there was a lion dance team in the village to visit the New Year, he ran from house to house with the lion team, excited by touching the lion's beard, and since then he has planted the seeds of learning lion dance in his heart.
When the lion group first stood, the conditions were harsh, and to practice squatting plum blossom piles, the adults in the village went to the mountain to carry wood and bury the piles in the open space in front of the door; without lion heads and gongs and drums, they used the basket as the lion's head and knocked on the wooden basin as a gong and drum; there was no anti-fall sponge pad, so they spread the straw underneath.
At that time, the piles were very low, and the teenagers were bouncing around on baskets and draped in sheets to learn lion dances. Courtesy of respondents
Practice physical fitness in the morning, martial arts at noon, and lion dance skills in the evening. The coaches of the lion group are very serious, often holding bamboo sticks, who are not easy to learn, whose movements are out of shape, and the bamboo sticks are beaten down.
Initially, their lion dance skills were mostly "self-taught" by watching the Video of the Guangdong Lions. Vacate the pile, roll forward the pile, flip the pile down, wire on the leg... Xuanzhou Awakening Lion Group has created many signature difficulty moves. Other Lions usually go up to the pile at 0.5 meters, and when they jump on the pile, it is 1.5 meters high, and the pile is 2.8 meters away. Whenever they have good ideas and see good movements, the children will practice over and over again until the practice meeting. "Because of their martial arts skills, you can practice a lot of moves that are difficult for other lion teams to complete." Zhu Qichun, a graduate of the martial arts school, is a martial arts instructor for the teenagers, and he believes that martial arts are the foundation of the Fujin County Lion Dance.
After graduating from a foreign martial arts school, the young Zhu Qichun opened a martial arts class on Xuanzhou Island, and then served as the coach of the Xuanzhou Awakening Lion Regiment
In terms of form, there are no lions to observe, and the coach lets the teenagers watch cats. "Joy, anger, drunkenness, pleasure, alarm, movement, doubt, many expressions can be observed in the cat." For example, when a cat sees a mouse, it slowly approaches the mouse at first, and when the mouse moves, it bounces back. These movements are very vivid and can be integrated into the culture of waking lions. Deng Binguang said.
After less than 1 year of training, the lion group can perform outside the island. Deng Minghua took the children on their backs to carry plum blossom stakes, took a ferry to the county town and then to the performance place, and soon became famous with the difficult lion dance. Their movements often amaze other lion groups: "It turns out that the lion dance can still be done on the plum blossom pile!" ”
Sweat and persistence
Genting, Malaysia, 2004. Putting on the lion's head, the noise continued to fade in Deng Binguang's mind, and the only remaining roar of the lion in his heart was: "You can't back down in the middle of the way, you can only go down step by step." ”
In the sound of gongs and drums, the male lion composed of Deng Binguang and Deng Jing'an flew up the pile and stood on the "cliff", and below it was the "abyss". Golden lion upside down, golden lion flipping heel fight, drunken lion single peak moon appreciation, steel wire one-word leg, side flip under the pile... The lion on the plum blossom pile came alive, and every time it was thrilling and dangerous, the audience's heart was hanging. There were no mistakes, just waves of applause and cheers.
Outside the venue, Deng Minghua listened to the movement and breathed a sigh of relief. Many years later, Deng Binguang also became a lion dance coach and finally understood Deng Minghua's mood at that time.
When he first joined the Lions Regiment, although Deng Binguang was young, he never accepted defeat in training. At 10 p.m., the Lions' training ground was turned off, and he was often left with his partner to stay and practice until 11:30 p.m. or even 12 p.m.
"Kids really love lion dances." Team leader Deng Minghua and coach Zhu Qichun sighed.
Because of his love, Zhu Jinsheng practiced fiercely and improved rapidly without a martial arts foundation. Later, he paired with Deng Minghua's son Deng Yuwen as a lion tail to form a high-level combination, often having the opportunity to go out to perform and compete. They represented the Lions in the National North and South Lions Championship in 2000 and won the third place. After this battle, the Xuanzhou Awakening Lion Regiment was included in the national A-class lion team.
In 2002, the strong Zhu Jinsheng and his teammates danced lions on a high stake
In 2001, 11-year-old Deng Binguang had his first little lion head, he was happy and broken, looking left and right. He also remembered that it was a white-haired, very imposing crane lion head, "When you have your own lion head, it means that you can be alone." ”
Two years later, Deng Binguang fell off a pile while practicing a difficult maneuver, just in the position where the straw had been stepped on, and fractured his left leg.
After recuperating for a while, Deng Binguang was able to walk and stood on the plum blossom pile again. Deng Minghua still remembered that during a non-training time, he listened to the sound of plum blossom piles outside in the house, and when he looked out, it was Deng Binguang, who had just recently injured his leg, so he drank and ordered him to go back to the pile to rest.
"Never thought to give up." Deng Binguang said that at that time, his parents also ridiculed that the child was so naughty that if he did not practice lion dance and climb the tree, he would break his leg.
Deng Binguang's parents supported him in the lion dance, but many of the children in the lion group were not as lucky as he was.
"Some of the kids are practicing really well and told him today that he's going to play recently and probably won't be here tomorrow. Some people's families really can't help it, and our coaches can't persuade them all to come back. Speaking of this, Zhu Qichun felt heartache. He said that these children generally have a bad family situation, many need to help the family to work, practice lion dances, get up early and greedy, not only can not help the family to work, clothes and shoes are often worn because of the lion dance, can not wear for long, but increase the burden on the family.
Zhu Jinsheng's parents did not want him to learn lion dance, thinking that it was the right thing to go to work quickly. Because the shoes and clothes are often damaged by the lion dance, Zhu Jinsheng has no money to buy, and he is not willing to ask for it with his family, so he will go to the other side of the river to dig bamboo shoots to earn money, sometimes he can earn seven or eight yuan a day, enough to buy a pair of white sneakers.
Silence after glory
Genting, Malaysia, 2004. 9.23 points, Guangxi Tengxian Xuanzhou Awakening Lions results frozen, champion! The Lion King of the World!
Cheers rang out, and the audience all stood up and applauded. The thin black boy emerged from the lion's head, and before he could think carefully about what it meant, he was overwhelmed by the ecstasy of the others.
The coach and team leader rushed in and gave Deng Binguang, who was still dazed, a big hug. Many overseas Chinese and lion teams came to them for a group photo, and many photos recorded the teenager's confusion, "Quite tired, the first time so many people looked for me to take a group photo."
In 2004, Deng Binguang, wearing a sportswear, was interviewed by infographic
After returning to Vine County from Malaysia, the county government police car drove around the city with them. "They want everyone in the county to know that our Teng County Lion Dance represented China to Malaysia and won the world championship." This is the only time the Chinese lion dance team has won the championship in Genting in many years. That year, the enthusiasm for the lion dance in Fujian County was unprecedentedly high, and many townships and towns set up lion groups and went to Xuanzhou to wake up the lion group to learn from the scriptures.
After the big heat, there is a longer period of silence. After 2006, the first lion dance team members who grew up in Xuanzhou came to adulthood and faced important choices in life. Many team members were urged by their families to work outside to earn money to supplement their families. Although it can still get good results in major competitions, the income of this small island lion group with the honor of "World Lion King" is very unstable, and the team members can support themselves when they are good, and they also need parental subsidies when they are bad.
Like the prevailing prejudices presented in the animated film Lion Boy, parents began to ask teenagers, "What is the use of you learning to dance lions?" ”
In order to support their families, some people went to the lion group in the more economically developed areas, some people changed their careers to work in factories, and some people started the old business of The Xuanzhou people - running boats.
Deng Binguang still insists on staying in Fujian County, he is in high school these years, although he will return to the island to practice as soon as he has time, and large and small events will also squeeze in time to participate, but in the end he cannot have the previous focus.
Zhu Jinsheng left the Xuanzhou Lion Awakening Group at the age of 18 to dance the lions of a factory in Nanjing, and then traveled to Beijing, Nanning, Zhanjiang, Shenzhen and other places to dance lions and teach people to dance lions. When he was a child, one of the motivations for Zhu Jinsheng to learn lion dance was to learn to be able to "go outside to play". As an adult, he went to many places, almost all of them big cities.
Although the lion dance has lost talent and broken files seriously, with the reputation of "world lion king", there are also a group of lion dancers who insist, and the culture of the lion dance in Fujian County is still constantly advancing. In 2007, the Tengxian Lion Dance was included in the first batch of intangible cultural heritage protection list at the autonomous region level, and in May 2011, the Fujian Lion Dance was included in the national intangible cultural heritage protection list.
In the past few years, Deng Binguang's life has been full of twists and turns. In 2008, Deng Binguang and others, with the support of Hong Kong businessman Zhong Daoren, established the Shenzhen Bilintang Lion Troupe, and gathered the brothers who had trained together on Xuanzhou Island and then went to various lion groups to come back to work together. Since then, Deng Binguang has often run on both sides of Shenzhen and Fujian County. When there is a need in his hometown, Deng Binguang will also represent his hometown to participate in the competition. In 2009, Deng Binguang was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and the doctor thought that he could no longer dance the lion, but Deng Binguang was unwilling to give up, so he insisted. "Others train for two hours, I will train for five hours", after recovering from the disease, he restored his competitive level to the level before he fell ill with an unimaginable training intensity.
In order to maintain the reputation of the tengxian lion dance, it has become a top priority to cultivate lion dance talents. In 2015, Zhou Yuanbiao, then director of the Fujian County Culture, Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television Sports Bureau, said in an interview with the media that due to the lack of a systematic talent management mechanism, the lion dance in Fujian County led to the loss of elites in the lion dance, and there was a shortage of successor talents. In addition, the domestic lion dance technique has not yet matured the industry, and the living environment of many lion dance artists is worrying, which also leads to difficulties in cultivating subsequent talents.
In the same year, in order to save the decline, the official spent about 8 million yuan to support the development of lion dance skills. In September of that year, Fujian County Secondary Professional School welcomed 50 new students majoring in lion dance.
In 2015, Fujian County Secondary School became the first college in the country to open a lion dance major Photo courtesy of respondents
Returning is still a teenager
In 2018, Malaysia came to Penang, and the International High Pile Lion Dance Invitational is underway. The 28-year-old Deng Binguang represented Bi Lintang in the competition, and he was accompanied by 11-year-old lion head Liu Jianyong and 12-year-old lion tail Liu Yaowen.
This is Liu Jianyong's first time participating in the competition. He comes from Heliu Village, Xiangqi Town, a remote mountain village in Fujian County, and is less than 1.4 meters tall, while the distance between the two columns on the high pile is 1.8 meters. There are almost no people in this age group who can compete on the pile, and the audience is shocked to see it. During the game, due to excessive tension and the discomfort of the venue, they made two major mistakes and fell off the pile. However, listening to the encouragement of the audience, they put on the lion's head again, returned to the pile, and insisted on completing a whole set of movements.
A year later, Liu Jianyong and Liu Yaowen went to Malaysia again. At this time of the Kuantan Lion King Invitational Tournament, he and Liu Yaowen did not drop the pile again, and won the Palace Army and the Best Popularity Award.
"This allows everyone to see that our Fujian Lion Dance is a successor." Deng Binguang said.
Liu Jianyong is a student of the 2021 class of lion dance major of Fujian County Secondary School. Deng Binguang remembers the first time he saw Liu Jianyong, he was only 10 years old and was still studying in the Xuanzhou Awakening Lion Group. Although the teenager is dark and thin, and does not like to talk, he is very talented and is a good seedling for practicing lion dance. Deng Binguang consulted with his coach at the time, hoping to systematically train him. "The child was very strong, fell off the pile, and several times he was so painful that he could not speak, but after a little relief, he re-entered the pile." Deng Binguang saw the shadow of his youth in Liu Jianyong.
At the age of 14, Liu Jianyong went to Fuji County Secondary School, where he and Shiwei Zhong Qiwen re-formed a team, and the combination of the two won many awards. Zhong Qiwen, 17 years old, a 2020 student of Fujian County Secondary School, is a teenager who once dropped out of school due to part-time work, and was later persuaded to return to study and join a junior high school club to practice lion dance, and finally found the meaning of life.
Liu Jianyong and partner Zhong Qiwen provided pictures from the interviewee
Zhu Shengqing returned to Fujian County Secondary School in 2018 to teach lion dance, he was one of the first teenagers to learn lion dance on Xuanzhou Island, and was later selected by Beijing Sport University to become an undergraduate student, and after graduation, he went to Hong Kong for many years, and has been insisting on working in the lion dance industry. In 2019, Tengxian Lion King Communication Culture Co., Ltd., founded by Deng Binguang, Zhu Shengqing and others, was established, and has invested more than 2 million yuan to build the Dragon lion Zazuo Art Museum in Fujian County Secondary School, and jointly opened lion dance training and dragon lion Zazuo art teaching classes with Fujian County Secondary School.
Inside the Zazuo Pavilion, the master is painting the lion's head. As a traditional craft, zazuo entered the campus, in addition to training a group of students who specialize in zazuo, but also as one of the options after the lion dance artist retired.
At Fuji County Junior High School, children start from the basic physical fitness and martial arts skills, learn dozens of lion dance routines and gong and drum performances, and then practice on the pile, repeating the movements on the pile over and over again until the lion head and tail can smoothly complete the whole set of lion dances. Leaping, swirling, upside down, stacking arhats... With the experience of the predecessors, these teenagers have taken many detours.
In addition to teaching students, in recent years, Fujian County Secondary School has cooperated with more than 30 primary and secondary schools in the county to open lion dance clubs, and many children who are currently learning lion dances in secondary schools are transported by these lion dance clubs. For example, Tangbu No.1 Middle School in Teng County trained lion dancer Zhong Qiwen, and this year was selected as the first batch of intangible cultural heritage inheritance education demonstration schools. According to reports, by the end of 2021, a total of 18 primary and secondary schools in Fujian County have trained more than 600 lion dance talents, forming a training channel for lion dance talents from primary school to junior high school to secondary school (high school).
The first kindergarten in Fujian County set up a young children's lion dance team, hired professional coaches to guide, and trained a group of lion dance elites to provide pictures from respondents
According to Zhu Shengqing's estimates, nearly a thousand children in Fujian County have learned the traditional art of lion dance in recent years, and the number of teenagers who have learned lion dance in the past 25 years has reached tens of thousands.
Last year, there was another good news that exhilarated lion dancers, and lion dancers could rate athletes by participating in the competition. Zhu Shengqing said that this means that children can achieve things that were not possible before through ratings, such as further education, "seeing the hope for the development of the lion dance." ”
Although Deng Minghua no longer serves as the leader of the regiment, he still often guides the lion regiment and makes piles for the teenagers.
After many years of business, Zhu Qichun returned to the lion dance circle, and is currently the president of the Fujian County Dragon and Lion Sports Association, planning a thick "future" for the Fujian County Lion Dance.
Deng Binguang has become the iconic figure of the Fujian Lion Dance, and in 2019, he led a number of Fujian Lion Dancers to the Spring Festival Gala. Today, he has been semi-retired, usually with students, and occasionally competes in person.
Deng Binguang performed a photo for the interviewees for students at a "Entering the Campus" event
Zhu Jinsheng accidentally fell off a pile during a training session in 2014 and has been paralyzed ever since, leaving him to lie in bed and be cared for by his parents. He often recalls the pure time of learning lion dances on Xuanzhou Island, and he has no regrets about learning lion dances.
Liu Jianyong and Zhong Qiwen, these teenagers from humble origins chose the lion dance, falling from the high pile again and again, and getting up from the ground again and again. Putting on the lion's head is a brave way to go forward; taking off the lion's head also straightens the back.
The male lion teenagers of Fuji County Junior High School
Regarding what the spirit of waking the lion is, their answers are surprisingly consistent: do not retreat, do not give up, do not accept defeat.
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