Country dragon dance

In my memory, before and after the Dragon Boat Festival, my mother's hometown, Shuiyang, a water town in the south of the Yangtze River, always held a traditional activity, that is, dragon dancing.

Dragon dance is spontaneously organized by villages in the town. In addition to the common rolling dragons on TV, there are also special bench dragons and lantern dragons. The former is made up of long wooden benches in rural families connected by wooden pins, which can be disassembled and assembled very quickly in the dexterous hands of dragon dancers; Lantern dragon is like singing opera. The dragon dancers' faces are painted with the faces of the Three Kingdoms, with eighteen weapons tied with colored paper in one hand and waist drum lanterns in the other, marching in a column.

The adults in the town respect dragon dancing very much. They think dragon dancing is a symbol of good luck. As soon as the Dragon Dance Team comes, business people will set off firecrackers at no cost, and some even put incense tables at the door to let the dragon dancers make a detour at home. The faucet is at three o'clock in the main hall. At this time, the owner's face will bloom with a happy and satisfied smile, and hand-delivered a big red envelope. Children are too curious about dragon dancing. They pricked up their ears early, and when the firecrackers rang, they jumped out of the house like rabbits, chasing the dragon dance team all over the street, laughing and dancing like a group of happy elves, of course, I was one of them.

With the advancement of rural urbanization, there are fewer and fewer dragon dance teams, but this happy childhood experience is like a picture scroll, which will be engraved in my memory forever.