Celebrate the Lunar New Year with a look into performances of the Chinese lion dance here in Seattle.
The Chinese lion dance has been performed for hundreds of years, traditionally intended to chase away bad spirits and welcome in good luck and prosperity. With intricate steps often danced by kung fu practitioners, the lion dance is a staple of Lunar New Year celebrations in the Chinatown International District, as well as celebrations and business events across the community.
MOHAI, PEMCO Webster & Stevens Collection, 1983.10.2187.2
In May 1921, Seattle’s Chinese residents held a week-long carnival to raise money for the Chinese Famine Fund, which was raising money for the those impacted by famine in northern China.
The event was called Go-Hing and was sponsored by the China Club, Chinese consul Goon Dip, and an advisory committee of Seattle and Washington state civic leaders. Seattle Mayor Hugh Caldwell opened the six-day festival, which featured various themed events like Commerce Day, University and High School Night, and Union Labor Day. Tickets were sold to all in the city and raised $5,000 for the national China Famine Relief Fund.
Here, a Chinese dance group poses on King Street during the carnival. One group member wears the head of a Lion Dance costume, and others hold their musical instruments.
MOHAI, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, PI22398
During Chinese New Year celebrations in Seattle, the lion dancers make their way through Chinatown and historically stop in front of businesses to wish them a prosperous year. The businesses offer the lion red envelopes of money wrapped in lettuce leaves. The noise of the accompanying drums, gongs, cymbals and fireworks are believed to drive away evil spirits and bring good luck.
In this photo, probably taken around 1930, a lion dances along Seventh Avenue South, between King and Weller Streets, accompanied by cymbals and drums. The lion costume covers two dancers, one inside the head and one in the back.
MOHAI, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, 2000.107.176.19.21, photo by John Vallentyne
Later in the twentieth century, the International District’s annual Lunar New Year celebrations expanded to feature Japanese Taiko Drumming, martial arts demonstrations, and other Asian cultural performances, as well as the lion dances.
In this image, a member of the Seattle Chinese Young Men’s Club dancing in a lion costume, while the man next to him holds out an offering for the lion. Next to the lion, a photographer stands in the doorway of the Great Wall Hotel, and extension of the Fujii Hotel, located near the corner of South King Street and Maynard Avenue South where Hing Hay Park is today. This lion dance was performed on for the Gregorian or western New Year on January 1, 1959.
MOHAI, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, 2000.107.036.11.01, photo by John H. Herndon
This photo of a lion dance from the 1989 Lunar New Year celebration features dancer Sonny Kwan (left) and Kay Chinn lifting their lion costume during dance to bestow good luck on businesses. Kwan holds this “lucky money” in his mouth, some of which was donated to a Chinese American nursing home. The photo was taken in front of the Wah Young Co. Asian Grocery, at a location that would become part of the Wing Luke Museum in 2008.