舞獅 (Lion Dance) Chinese New Year - Houston, Bellaire Chinatown

Since the Lunar New Year fell on a weekday, most of the festivities around Houston's Bellaire Chinatown are taking place today, on a Saturday. I frequent the various bubble tea shops up and down the strip and today happened to be at Teahouse on Bellaire and Ranchester as a Lion dance group was about to perform a cai ching, or literally, "plucking the greens."

Five lions. I have never seen so many at one store. These are all kids and teenagers from a local Vietnamese dance group.

Here they are doing their poses outside the store.

The look of concentration or fatigue on their faces. I looked up what was on their jerseys and it appears to be the name of some Vietnamese internet entrepreneur.

Probably more fatigue. I'm sure they've done this dance so many times they could do it in their sleep.

Ack! They're storming the castle.

A little more info on cai ching, or plucking the greens. The owner of the store has put many red envelopes containing cash money offerings for both luck and for the performance up high in his store and the lions must now "dance" and "rear up" to put their mouth around the red envelopes and "eat them"

Here they are storming past me. All five of them are actually going to fit in this little store.

They went back out and did some acrobatics. Here the front of the Lion is standing on the thighs of the back which is how they "rear up."

Lion swaying its head.

Standing there looking puzzled.
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What's this in front of me?

Hmmm...maybe I should get closer to investigate.

Anybody else know what this is?

Nobody?

I step on it!

Rawr.

Well, I'll just flip it over then.

SNAKE!

What do we do?

Eat it.

But it's gross.

Eat it I dare ya!

OK, here goes!

Step on it first!

I ate it!

Hey, that's dirty! Don't do that!

I can't believe you ate it.

Let's dance.

Uunnh.

Yeow

Back into the store for more monay.

Up there you say?

Yummy.

How do I eat the money without electrocuting myself?

I have nothing to do for this entire dance.

I caught another Lion dance in a different area of Bellaire, this one by, I believe, a Chinese dance group. Basically the same dance.

Lighting was not as nice here. They still did the cai ching, and they were also picking up dollar bills that little kids were throwing in front of them. One kid was so scared he just wadded up the dollar his parents gave him and chucked it at the Lion.

Resting.

That's it.

If you live in a city large enough to have a sizable Chinese or Asian community and have never been to a Lunar New Year celebration, I recommend you go at least once. You still have time as things don't wrap up until tomorrow.