The thundering of firecrackers, the rumbling of drums, the crashing of gongs and cymbals and the ringing of church bells off in the distance. This is the sound of Easter in Bendigo. From the audience everything looks so easy and amazing and you don't know how much effort goes on behind the scenes unless you are a member or a parent of members. the Bendigo Chinese Association (BCA) starts preparing for next years Easter almost before Easter has finished. It involves long days training, early morning and late nights and months of preparation. It comprises of inviting teams from across the state, planning what we are performing and gathering volunteers and sponsors. This year Easter was just as busy as always.
Every year thousands come to the Gala Parade on Sunday to see Sun Loong weave through the streets of Bendigo. 88 volunteers are needed to carry him but before he can come out, he needs to be woken up. The Awakening of the Dragon is the title given to the event in which we wake up Sun Loong from his year long sleep.
Each year, the awakening of the dragon has something new
added to it and the donation dance gets better, with money raised going to Bendigo Health. This year it was an unseen
northern lion or Pekingese versus the southern lion, these lions would normally perform separately as they are two different styles. Also, new this year was three new dances by the Plum Blossom dancing team, semi-seniors waist drum dance; the seniors long sleeve dance. Our alumni, members who can’t come to training due to family and work commitments, long fan dance. To close the awakening a string of 100,000 firecrackers is lit, this year we added another string of 100,00 crackers, firstly to
ward off bad spirits and the second is to wake Sun Loong.
Prior to the awakening teams have a chance to perform at spring festival, the items that aren't being performed at the awakening with all teams performing lion dances. Hung Gar Yau Shu (HGYS) every year perform a drum dance and it gets better every time, with bigger and more drums being added. The Chinese Youth Society of Melbourne (CYSM) have a lotus dragon dance. They start the performance off dancing with ten lotus flowers that join together with a head and tail added to form a dragon to finish the performance. The BCA Plum Blossom dancing team performed all of our old dances leaving the new ones a surprise for the awakening.
Sunday was the gala parade, Sun Loong being the main attraction. This year we were a few volunteers short, but we still managed to have all our dragons and props out. Before the parade we had an inter-team egg hunt organised CYSM with anyone who wanted to participate. With all the teams having lunch together in the back car park behind our training rooms and all volunteers having lunch in the side car park. A few of us were still tired and sore from the torchlight the night before. We tend to look forward to it, but this year we didn't. None of us wanted to walk down View St and we all were feeling cold. Huddled together to keep warm we discussed the new route, and how View St wasn’t going to be fun for any of us. Looking at Chinese Youth League (CYL) in their warm hoodies with flashing zips, we thought we could go for one of those because they were warm.
During the torchlight, the walk down View St wasn’t as bad as we all thought it would be. It was easy and a short walk back to the Golden Dragon Museum with a really good turnout for the weather, the streets lined with three or four rows of people all trying to watch. Where as for the gala parade it felt harder, we started the walk up Park and Gaol Rd, it was harder to do in the day, because we could see where we were walking. The wait in the QEO car park wasn’t as long as it was for the torchlight too so we weren’t complaining about sore feet like the night before. Before long we were moving down View St, it was difficult to walk slowly down the hill stopping every few metres dancing and posing. Once we started on Pall Mall we felt a little bit of relief, it was almost the home straight, but we felt like we were walking for a long time.
Sunday was the gala parade, Sun Loong being the main attraction. This year we were a few volunteers short, but we still managed to have all our dragons and props out. Before the parade we had an inter-team egg hunt organised CYSM with anyone who wanted to participate. With all the teams having lunch together in the back car park behind our training rooms and all volunteers having lunch in the side car park. A few of us were still tired and sore from the torchlight the night before. We tend to look forward to it, but this year we didn't. None of us wanted to walk down View St and we all were feeling cold. Huddled together to keep warm we discussed the new route, and how View St wasn’t going to be fun for any of us. Looking at Chinese Youth League (CYL) in their warm hoodies with flashing zips, we thought we could go for one of those because they were warm.
During the torchlight, the walk down View St wasn’t as bad as we all thought it would be. It was easy and a short walk back to the Golden Dragon Museum with a really good turnout for the weather, the streets lined with three or four rows of people all trying to watch. Where as for the gala parade it felt harder, we started the walk up Park and Gaol Rd, it was harder to do in the day, because we could see where we were walking. The wait in the QEO car park wasn’t as long as it was for the torchlight too so we weren’t complaining about sore feet like the night before. Before long we were moving down View St, it was difficult to walk slowly down the hill stopping every few metres dancing and posing. Once we started on Pall Mall we felt a little bit of relief, it was almost the home straight, but we felt like we were walking for a long time.
Friday night was the welcome dinner with the visiting teams, Hung Gar Yau Shu Martial Arts School from Melbourne, Chinese Youth Society of Melbourne and the Chinese Youth League of Australia from Sydney as well as all performing team members of the BCA. The dinner is a huge barbeque and games, and a chance to meet new friends and catch up with old ones.
Getting back to the rooms was joy, knowing that it was all over for this year and it went well. Now to start thinking about next year and what we can do differently. We all hope that the parade route goes back to normal next year, just for the guys carrying Sun Loong and pushing the drum carts.
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