Lion dance today

The scene in three tracks

Since about 2000 southern lion dance has run on three tracks at once. The first is sport: federations, rule books, national championships and, at the top, the Genting World Lion Dance Championship in Malaysia. The second is heritage: governments in China, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam have put lion dance, or part of it, on official registers, and a joint China and Malaysia bid to UNESCO appears to be pending. The third is everyday and commercial: Lunar New Year rounds, shop openings, school fundraising, diaspora festivals, viral clips and films. One troupe often works all three in the same month, and the pull between them is the main argument of this chapter.

The sources are mostly newspapers, federation websites, government registers and short documentaries, so many figures are self-reported by organisers or troupes. Where a point rests on a headline or a video description alone, the text says so. Rule books are in Chapter 14, the US story is in Chapter 13 and the regional picture is in Chapter 12.

Champions: the Genting World Lion Dance Championship

The Genting World Lion Dance Championship (雲頂世界獅王爭霸賽, Mand. Yúndǐng Shìjiè Shīwáng Zhēngbà Sài) is the best-known world title in the sport. It is a high-pole (高樁, Cant. gou1 zong1, Mand. gāozhuāng) southern lion event run by Resorts World Genting with the Selangor and Kuala Lumpur Dragon and Lion Dance Association (雪隆龍獅聯合總會, Mand. Xuělóng Lóngshī Liánhé Zǒnghuì). Chinese Wikipedia dates the first edition to 28-29 January 1994. It has run every two years since, except that the 2020 edition was postponed because of COVID-19 and nothing was held in 2020 or 2022.¹ In 2023 and 2025 the format was two days of preliminaries and then a final for the top 10 or 11 teams. Each team performs a cai qing (採青, Cant. coi2 ceng1, Mand. cǎiqīng, "plucking the green", see Chapter 10) routine on high poles around a named theme, and its high-difficulty moves are counted. Scores run to two decimals out of 10. Separate Eastern and Western Lion King awards go to the best Asian and best Western-country teams, and the public votes for a Most Popular award.^2,3

Yi Wei is written 藝威 in the newspaper and 義威 in some video notes. The newspaper spelling fits the routine title 藝膽雄威.²

Kun Seng Keng (關聖宮龍獅團, Mand. Guānshènggōng lóngshī tuán), the temple troupe from Muar, won or shared the title in 12 of the 13 editions from 1994 to 2018.¹ Its head coach Siow Fei Hong (蕭斐弘, Mand. Xiāo Fěihóng; some sources print the middle character as 裴) is credited with standardising the Malaysian high-pole style from 1992. That claim is medium confidence.⁴

The 2023 edition ended Malaysia's run. Sin Chew called it the first time Malaysia could not keep the title. Defending champion Kun Seng Keng fell in the preliminaries and was eliminated, and its tail player was carried off by medics. Siow Fei Hong told Sin Chew that one failure does not erase past effort. Sungai Way lost the final by 0.09 despite 23 difficulty moves against Yi Wei's 17.² The 2025 prize pool was a record for Genting's 60th anniversary: US$18,000 for the champion, US$10,000 for second, US$6,000 for third, seven merit awards of US$1,800 and a new US$2,000 Highest Difficulty Award.³

Other championships and top troupes

Genting is one event on a crowded calendar. The table lists the others on record.

In the United States the national circuit is small. The United States Dragon and Lion Dance Federation (USDLDF), based in Madison, Wisconsin, was inaugurated in 2017 after two future board members attended Genting in 2016. It sanctions nationals, certifies judges and picks Team USA: the highest-ranked member team at the qualifier gets first refusal on international invitations.¹³ A separate Texas-based body, the USA Dragon and Lion Dance Sports Association (全美國龍獅運動協會), runs its own nationals in Grand Prairie (a Sing Tao report and a Dallas listing match the names, at medium confidence).^20,21

Other troupes recur. Sungai Way (Selangor) was runner-up at Genting in 2000 and 2023. Rawang Xuanlong, founded in 2016, moved to high pole in 2022 and won the 2024 Malaysian title, and its members include a Muslim dancer from Sabah.⁵ Leung's White Crane won the Western Lion King in 2006 and 2010, and other US teams took it in 2023 and 2025.^1,2,24 Jakarta's Kong Ha Hong took third in 2014.²⁵ A Hong Kong team, Ha Kwok Cheung, is called an 11-time "World Lion King" by Chinese state media, a self-reported claim this guide could not verify.²⁶ LongShi Stories podcast interviews add other Malaysian troupes, among them Penang's Hong Guan (宏冠文化體育會/宏冠文化体育会), which was founded in 1989 by the father of its leader, Liu Jun Lin (刘俊霖/劉俊霖), and passed to him at 17 after the founder's death in 2007.LongShi Stories EP.5, Liu Jun Lin @ 01:21²⁷ The description of Liu's episode lists two 2025 wins for the team, the 6th Hung Si Lau Cup Lion King contest and the 5th Tian Fu Gong White Dragon King International Open (traditional category); Liu says both were abroad, in Hong Kong and Singapore, though, he says, the team cannot win the championship in Malaysia.LongShi Stories EP.5 @ 1:04:39²⁷ Jason Tan says his father founded Kwong Ngai (光藝龍獅體育會/光艺龙狮体育会) in 2002 and that it won a Genting championship in 2003, which the interview calls its only one and which, as the world championship ran in even years, was presumably the national event.LongShi Stories EP.2, Jason Tan @ 04:07²⁸ Koo Yueh Wei's Kin Cho Hong (建造行) of Kuantan was second at the 2019 national championship and second in the high-pole category at the 2020 Crocodile World contest in Hong Kong, says the description of his episode.²⁹

Heritage listings by country

Heritage status is often misreported. A common error is calling the 2006 Chinese listing a UNESCO one.

The UNESCO bid is the live question. Chinese and Malaysian leaders backed a joint nomination in 2024, web reports say the dossier went to UNESCO in March 2025, and a May 2026 report still called the bid pending. No inscription decision turned up.⁴² The Genting documentary narrator dates the nomination to 2024, and a Metro TV feature, apparently a re-aired CCTV item, quotes a young dancer who expects recognition to lift lion dance to "a more official and global platform".⁵Metro TV, young dancers and UNESCO @ 02:08⁴³

Innovations: lights, lighter heads, fusions and social media

Light-up lions. LED came first as decoration, then as a product. Chinese Wikipedia says many modern southern heads have switchable LED decoration, and a Vietnamese-made Fut San-style head in a team vlog has battery-powered LED eyes.^44,45 In Suixi, Guangdong, Li Zujie (born about 1995) developed a first-generation luminous lion in 2013. His family factory makes over 10,000 lion dance items a year, sold over 400 luminous lions in a recent year (the report's date is not recorded) and exports to more than 20 countries and regions.⁴⁶ The 2025 Genting winner danced with LED lights and a Nezha (哪吒, Mand. Nézhā) prop, Malaysian national championship teams in 2026 lit giant props with LEDs, and Raub's 2025 price range includes LED-lion packages.^24,10,47 Luminous dragons (夜光龍, Cant. je6 gwong1 lung4, Mand. yèguānglóng) have their own contests, and Hong Kong's first territory-wide one was in 2000.¹⁴

Light also started a symbolism row. At the Night Vibes Hong Kong launch on 14 September 2023, silver lions with LED effects drew mockery as a funeral dressed as a celebration. Lion maker Hui Ka-hung (許嘉雄, Mand. Xǔ Jiāxióng) said white alone does not mean mourning; drooping eyelids, no red nose and a white flower on top do (Chapter 11).⁴⁸

Lighter heads. The owner of New York's Wan Chi Ming school says head and tail together weighed 30 to 40 lb in the 1970s to 1990s and now weigh 10 to 20 lb.Generations leap: 50 years of the unbroken lion @ 02:38⁴⁹ Indonesia's federation says a head alone once weighed 5 to 10 kg and a whole lion is now about 7 kg.⁴⁰ Malaysian makers sell sizes 1 to 6, from about 2 kg for a size 3 to about 7 kg for a size 1.⁵⁰ Hui Ka-hung designs light, agile heads because modern lion dance is a sport.⁵¹ Suixi heads use one ring of tassels instead of many, and wool, rabbit hair and plush instead of horsehair, which cuts weight, cost and drag. A Suixi bearer says sport needs standardised equipment and Suixi proportions are now the world standard, a self-report.⁴⁶

Fusions. Hong Kong's martial arts association writes that Singapore and Malaysia first fused southern and northern lion in the 1980s, shortening the lion cloth and dancing the southern lion with northern movements, which allowed harder cheng and competitions.¹⁴ Singapore's inventory records that Chin Woo redesigned costumes for easier movement and cut routines to about seven minutes.³⁷ Hybrid heads are ordinary: Fut Hok (佛鶴, Cant. fat6 hok6) mixes Foshan and Heshan features, Gund Kwok calls it "Fat Hok," and the Texas Dragon/Lion Dance Team in Austin blends Chinese and Vietnamese styles.^52,53 Indonesian championship teams add local music, and this counts toward scoring.⁴⁰ In April 2026 Ho Chi Minh City staged pole lion as a concert, with LED screens and pop singers, and hip-hop lion clips spread on Vietnamese social media in 2025.¹⁹ On America's Got Talent in 2012, Howard Stern called LionDanceME's pole work "metal against skin" and Howie Mandel said he was bored.Lion Dance Me, America's Got Talent 2012 @ 03:31⁵⁴

Social media. Singapore's inventory notes that troupes use video, social media and Facebook.³⁷ A 17-year-old hijab-wearing head player in Penang went viral on TikTok in January 2023.⁵⁵ A Threads video of a Malaysian lion falling from 2.8 m poles set nearly 2 m apart, then climbing back to finish, went viral at Lunar New Year 2026.⁵⁶ Individual creators also reach large audiences. A Toronto-based creator who posts as @xerenite, and whom a Patreon page under the same name calls Wei, lists lion dance in an Instagram bio beside stunt acting, cosplay and wushu, and the account showed 252,838 followers and 239 posts on 9 October 2026.^57,58 The Patreon page describes a past as a full-time Team Canada Wushu athlete and a move into streaming and content creation when competitions stopped at the start of COVID-19; both are self-descriptions.⁵⁸ The visible part of the bio names no lion dance team or school, no press coverage of the creator was found, and the view counts of the lion dance reels were not recorded. Two more accounts show other routes. Howard, a Foshan creator who goes by 熱氣獅/热气狮 ("Heat Lion"), is introduced by the LongShi Stories podcast as a lion dance content creator known for imitating and studying teams' styles around the world; clip titles add that he is a Chinese dragon and lion judge who explains the grades from Foshan city up to international judge, and that he took up lion dance coaching to turn an interest into a career.⁵⁹⁶⁰⁶¹ His Instagram (@howardmakwt) showed 12.1K followers and 261 posts on 9 October 2026, and his 23 January 2026 reel in the series 環遊獅界/环游狮界 ("Around the Lion World"), naming Malaysia's 沙威文青龍獅團/沙威文青龙狮团 (Sha Wei Wen Qing), about 3,800 likes.⁶²⁶³ Guanshen Lu (陸觀深/陆观深) had 278,159 followers and 349 posts the same day; the visible part of his bio claims 60 lion dance competition honours for 2019 to 2024, names no team or school and links the Cirque du Soleil and Messi Cirque accounts, and two of his three pinned posts, from December 2022, are tagged Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, one of them a joint post with Cirque du Soleil.⁶⁴⁶⁵ A Leung's White Crane member warns that many US students learn from YouTube, are not taught the techniques properly and still claim to know lion dance.On High: The Story of American Lion Dancers @ 02:20⁶⁶ Novelty has limits. In 2026 a Singapore video of a God of Wealth character lying on the ground and bumping the lion's tail during the cai qing drew anger.⁶⁷

If indecent moves are added for the sake of innovation, that destroys fine Chinese tradition. (若是为了创新而加入不雅动作，就是在破坏优良的中华传统文化)

Hong Maocheng (洪茂诚, Mand. Hóng Màochéng), president of the Singapore Wushu Dragon and Lion Dance Federation, Sin Chew, 8 Mar 2026⁶⁷

Women and girls

Custom kept women out of southern lion dance for most of the 20th century. Accounts describe women as limited to cymbals or gongs at best, and in some places as not allowed to touch the lion. That has changed a great deal since 1998.

Gund Kwok (Boston) was founded in February 1998 by Cheng Imm Tan, who grew up in Penang and whose parents would not let her learn kung fu "because girls were not supposed to be strong". The name means "heroine" (Cant. gan1 gwok3, almost certainly 巾幗, Mand. jīnguó; the characters are inferred from the meaning, not seen in a source). The troupe began with ten women taught by a former Wah Lum chief instructor, and Tan then studied in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, most notably with Master Mah Yoke Seng of Penang.⁵² By 2013 there were 24 women, 75 percent attendance was required, and the troupe did 18 to 24 performances a year after a 10-week trial class.⁶⁸ Its website now describes an 8-week trial and a Cubs Troupe for children aged 6 and over, and AARP reported members aged 12 to 66 in 2024.^52,69

Women in China were seen as "not strong enough, not fit, not clean even."

Cheng Imm Tan, in NPR's report, 31 Jan 2014⁶⁹

Hong Kong. A Goldthread video, "Why Women Could Never Be Lion Dancers Until Now" (producer Tiffany Ip), covers a Hong Kong martial arts centre training women. Only its description and chapter titles could be recovered ("Stepping into the lion" at 0:00, "Training hard" at 1:57, "Finding the right training partner" at 3:14), because the caption file was unusable, so what its speakers say is not recorded here.⁷⁵ A HK01 piece, known only from a video description, quotes "Yuki".

The older generation thought girls must not touch a lion head, especially an eye-opened one, because it is unlucky.

"Yuki", Hong Kong open champion, HK01 video description⁷⁵. Original: 老一輩認為，女生不能碰獅頭，尤其已「開光」的獅頭; 開光 is Cant. hoi1 gwong1, Mand. kāiguāng, the eye-opening rite

Malaysia. The Penang aunties' troupe formed after the lockdowns to re-engage seniors. They practise every two weeks, built their temple and give free food to the needy, and the 55-year-old assistant nurse who holds the head says stamina is hard and her body aches the next day.These "aunties" started their own lion dance troupe in Malaysia @ 00:41⁷⁴ Siti Aishah says she worried her father would not allow it "because I am a girl" (sebab saya perempuan), and that falls and head knocks are normal.⁵⁵ A 20-year-old Muslim dancer from Sabah says her coach taught her that drumheads are cowhide and that non-Muslim members enter temples in her place. She filmed the inside of the lion head to show her family it has nothing to do with haram, and her team treats the work as sport, "not religion or race".JIWA SINGA @ 09:30⁵

Reception. Ian Chow of Toronto says his team is half women. In seniors' homes, older women who were never allowed to practise, be photographed with or touch the lion react with "a big shock in the whole room" when girls lift off the head.The Art of Kung Fu and Lion Dance @ 04:42⁷⁶ Cassandra Lee says traditional audiences "actually look down upon" female dancers, but immigrants react differently because "it's something from home".The lion dancing women reinventing a Chinese tradition @ 00:26⁷¹

Safety

Injury is part of competitive lion dance, and participants say so plainly. A Genting adviser said high-pole dancers may fall "1000 times" in training, a coach quoted after the 2026 national championship called injuries routine, and Kuantan teenagers said everyone has been hurt and some have broken legs or arms.^3,10,79 On the second preliminary day of Genting 2025 alone, four teams (Philippines, Houston, Hong Kong, Singapore) withdrew because of injured members, a Semenyih head dancer sprained an ankle on the final pole flip, a Vietnamese dancer hurt a hand mid-routine and a Taiwanese team fell from the poles.²⁴ In 2023 a Medan team from Indonesia fell twice and Kun Seng Keng's tail player was carried off by medics.² Jason Loh of Penang's Mei Hu, a high-pole head dancer, says his team's first practice rig was a large metal frame with adjustable pole spacing, built so that a fall landed on the frame and not on the ground.LongShi Stories EP.6, Jason Loh @ 03:15⁸⁰ He estimates that a new pair needs about two years to reach simple high-pole difficulties, starting young on low poles or an iron frame, and names the horse stance and courage as the basics.LongShi Stories EP.6 @ 35:35⁸⁰ Asked whether the sport is safe enough, he says it is "already pretty good" and that more protection would cost it its excitement; he says competition mattresses are adequate, practice safety needs strengthening and depends on each team's coach, and new shoes can be slippery on the poles until their oily finish wears off.LongShi Stories EP.6 @ 37:15⁸⁰

The dancers describe the mechanics. Two Yi Wei dancers name the hardest moves: the downward somersault in which the tail jumps over the head and lands first; "the spider", where the head hangs from the poles over the tail; and backward moves on poles the tail cannot see. The landing plate is 30 cm across and up to 2.5 m high. One failed jump fractured a wrist, and getting past fear of one move took about a week. "If there's no trust, there's no us."Anatomy of a lion dance with Singapore Yiwei @ 01:09⁸ Indonesia's federation says meniscus injuries are common because the work is explosive.Podcast Nusantara @ 23:03⁴⁰ Head players also work half blind: a 13-year-old in a student film says you cannot tell how far away someone is, so you have to be extra careful.The People Behind the Tradition @ 01:08⁸¹

Rules respond. The IDLDF's older texts require sponge mats under poles, bridges and ropes or the team may not compete, allow two to four spotters who may not touch athletes, ban flash photography, require a hospital medical check, and cap poles at 3 m with a top plate of 0.38 m including padding.⁷⁸ The USDLDF allows up to four safeguards in freestyle pole events, supplies standard poles and mats, and allows none in traditional events (0.5 deducted per use).¹³ Taiwan's 2025 rules disqualify teams for dry ice, flammable powder or sharp props.⁸² Rules do not prevent every problem: at the 2018 US nationals the pole competition did not run as scheduled because poles wobbled (see the box under the US results).³⁰

Fire and permits. Singapore partly banned firecrackers in March 1970 after a fire killed six and injured 68, banned them fully in August 1972, and since 2003 allows them only by government-appointed personnel.⁸³ Hong Kong banned firecrackers and so, says China News Service, made lion dance the fixed festive item.²⁶ Wikipedia, citing Reader's Digest, says Massachusetts was the only US state banning consumer firecrackers as of 2023, yet Boston's Chinatown parade sets thousands off on Harrison Avenue; the permit route has not been confirmed.^83,84 New York troupes need an NYPD 5th Precinct permit for the Super Saturday rounds: in 2026, 14 groups registered against a past maximum of 23, and 82 officers closed Chinatown to traffic.⁸⁵

Crowds and health. After the Monterey Park shooting on Lunar New Year's Eve 2023, police in New York, Philadelphia and Washington raised security at Lunar New Year events.⁸⁷ Boston's Nam Pai troupe gave its first lion dance since February 2020 in June 2021 "to chase away the coronavirus".⁸⁴

Sportification and its critics

Sportification means turning a custom into a sport with a governing body, written rules, timed routines and scores. It is a major change since 2000, and it began earlier in some places.

Participants argue about what this cost. Liang Litang (梁溧棠, Mand. Liáng Lìtáng), chairman of the Selangor and Kuala Lumpur federation and a senior officer of the international federation, says in the Genting documentary that today's high-pole lion dance has already separated from culture, since it stresses difficulty, speed and spectacle. In the same film he says Malaysia pioneered the poles and its technique is world class.JIWA SINGA @ 14:13⁵ Indonesia's federation secretary general says the old blessing ceremony that put the spirit into the lion "no longer exists" in the sport world, and that obstacle and speed events are "full sport" that need no philosophy.Podcast Nusantara @ 10:10⁴⁰ He also says parents who once asked "what will you become?" now see PON gold medallists get bonuses and university places.

Difficulty counting sits at the centre. Genting added a Highest Difficulty Award in 2025 and reports give each finalist's move count, yet the 2023 final went to the team with 17 difficulty moves over one with 23, so form, expression and music still count.^2,3 The 2023 champions stress trust and making routines look effortless and tell a story.Anatomy of a lion dance @ 03:00⁸

If skateboarding can be an Olympic event, why not lion dance? (既然滑板可以作为奥运项目，为何舞狮不能？)

Genting executive 李德龙 (Mand. Lǐ Délóng; the romanisation "Lee Teck Loong" is unconfirmed), Sin Chew, 17 Apr 2025³

Not everyone sees the change as a gain. The owner of a New York kung fu school says lion dance, once the show of a school's martial spirit, is now "more of an entertainment aspect".⁴⁹ In September 2026 a Butterworth club chairman, hearing of a robot sports meet, worried that dragon and lion dance and wushu could be replaced by machines.

They must not lose their original spirit and soul because times change. (不能因为时代改变而失去原有的精神与灵魂)

Yang Shifeng (杨式丰, Mand. Yáng Shìfēng), Butterworth club chairman, Sin Chew, 26 Sep 2026⁹¹

Films and documentaries

Once Upon a Time in China III. The film (黃飛鴻之三：獅王爭霸, Cant. wong4 fei1 hung4 zi1 saam1 si1 wong4 zaang1 baa3, Mand. Huáng Fēihóng zhī sān: Shīwáng Zhēngbà) played in South Korea in December 1992 and Hong Kong on 11 February 1993. Empress Dowager Cixi and Li Hongzhang stage a national lion contest in Beijing, the finale is a mass lion battle up a scaffold, and Wong throws back the gold medal, calling infighting a defeat for China.⁹² Earlier kung fu films had already staged cheng contests as school rivalry, including The Young Master (1980), Dreadnaught (1981) and Martial Club (1981).⁹⁷ Tsui Hark asked the Li family of Foshan for hundreds of heads, and the giant one took a month.⁹³ Jet Li's imperial-yellow lion is historically impossible, since a commoner's lion in that colour would have been a capital offence under the Qing.⁹⁸

I Am What I Am (2021). Directed by Sun Haipeng (孫海鵬) and released on 17 December 2021, it follows A-Juan, a left-behind teen in a Guangdong village who forms a team with A-Mao and A-Gou, trains under an ex-dancer called Salted-Fish Qiang (咸魚強, Mand. Xiányú Qiáng) and wins a Guangzhou championship. The climax is on a towering pole that the film says represents humility. The project began in August 2019 with three keywords, lion dance, youth and hot-blooded passion, and the finale cue layers the lion drum with about 100 sampled percussion tracks. The opening weekend took only CN¥65 million, but the film passed CN¥200 million on 3 January 2022 and finished near CN¥250 million. A Weibo row said its narrow-eye designs "insulted China"; the producers cited realism and Once Upon a Time in China III.⁹⁹

I Am What I Am 2 (2024). Released on 14 December 2024 (The Kung Fu Kid abroad), it takes A-Juan to Shanghai and a martial-arts fighting night. It grossed about CN¥81 to 83 million against about CN¥200 million in production and CN¥80 million in marketing, and a third film on a dragon-boat theme was "in planning" in June 2025, subject to funding. The score mixes the lion's tanggu drum with Chinese hip-hop and rock. The director said lion dance and traditional martial arts are inseparable (舞獅和傳統武術是密不可分的).⁹⁹

Documentaries. Heart of the Lion, by London-based Rosanna Lee, follows Kelvin Chan, a British-born dancer introduced to lion dance at four by a Cantonese father who had trained in a Yuen Long village. The SCMP item says many London troupes are shrinking as members retire, die or move to Hong Kong, and that the film was due in early 2025.Heart of the Lion, SCMP @ 00:55⁹⁵ Dance the Lion is an ArtsLion DVD of about 50 minutes. Its preview, as far as the captions could be read, tells the story of the Singapore Hok San Association, with the Hok San tradition arriving in 1940 and the association forming in 1952, though names are garbled.History of Lion Dance, Dance the Lion preview @ 01:12⁹⁶ Resorts World Genting's 22-minute JIWA SINGA (2025) is the mini-documentary quoted throughout this chapter.⁵ Podcasts are a newer form: LongShi Stories (龍獅相傳/龙狮相传), a Malaysian channel that calls itself the first devoted to dragon and lion dance, is hosted by Yu Heng (于恒/于恆) and Ivan, recent graduates, one of whom says he had the idea long before and pitched it to the other on a seven-hour bus ride to a Penang competition in 2022.¹⁰⁰ They say lion dance media had mostly meant photography, earlier podcasts were not local or had stopped, and general podcasts only host dancers as guests; they plan to cover Malaysia state by state, then other kinds of dragon and lion dance, then other countries.LongShi Stories EP.0 @ 19:17¹⁰⁰ The episodes mention production limits: a friend lent the camera used in the first episode, and a camera in a later episode has a 30-minute recording limit that makes the hosts break about every 20 minutes.LongShi Stories EP.2 @ 28:19¹⁰⁰²⁸ Its Instagram account (@longshi_stories) showed 4,480 followers on 9 October 2026, and its most-viewed episode, EP.3, had 15,243 views on YouTube.¹⁰¹¹⁰²

Elsewhere on screen. Disney's Mulan (1998) has the Huns hide in a northern-style imperial lion. Lions appear in music videos by Zayn and Sia and by Big Bang. Genshin Impact version 4.4 (Lantern Rite, early 2024) added the playable lion dancer Gaming (嘉明, Mand. Jiāmíng), modelled on Guangdong lion dance, and Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree (2024) has a northern-style "Divine Beast Dancing Lion" boss. English Wikipedia calls the Genshin character "Yip Gaming", but the in-game name is Gaming.^6,4

What it costs to book or run a troupe

No booking prices were found for the United States or Hong Kong. The figures come from Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia, plus US contest fees. Currencies are not converted, and the years differ.

Bookings concentrate in a few days. Raub's association chairman says about 80 percent of orders are homes and 20 percent shops, with over 100 orders. Peak days are days one to five of the lunar year, with 10 to 15 cai qing a day and a record of 20 on day three. A double lion cai qing needs 12 to 15 people, and a novice practising daily needs about two months to get from instruments to basic head work. A rival troupe skipped Lunar New Year in 2025 and 2026 for lack of manpower as members aged out. The floor set spells 招財進寶 (Mand. zhāo cái jìn bǎo) with a banana for 招, lettuce for 財, a mandarin orange for 進 and a pomelo for 寶, as the troupe explains it. The Cantonese sound puns behind each pairing are this guide's own gloss, not the troupe's.⁴⁷

Makers earn little: a Foshan factory worker gets 3,000 to 8,000 yuan a month,¹¹¹ and Hui Ka-hung says only 3 or 4 Hong Kong craftsmen remain.¹⁰⁷

Money in. Cai qing can fund a school. Klang Hin Hua High School's troupe raised RM808,888.88 in 2026, up from RM740,732.96 in 2025 and over RM680,000 in 2024.¹¹² Johor's government handed 460 lions and 230 drums to 230 registered troupes on 15 February 2026, part of RM1.5 million for lions and drums within RM17 million for the Chinese community.¹¹³ In Vietnam lion dance was "not a respectable profession" in the 1970s and 1980s, according to one paper,¹¹⁴ and a Mid-Autumn headline tells of four children who pooled 800,000 VND for a head and earned 20,000 in an evening.¹¹⁵ Young dancers in a China and Malaysia feature say their biggest challenge is parents asking how much you can earn.Metro TV, young dancers and UNESCO @ 02:00⁴³

Massachusetts in context

Massachusetts is unusually present in the national scene. The USDLDF's senior adviser and general counsel are from Massachusetts, the first nationals were held in Quincy, and a Worcester team won the 2019 traditional title.^13,22 Boston's calendar runs on the CCBA of New England's Chinatown parade (1 March 2026, about ten lion groups), the August Moon Festival (56th edition in 2026), family-association banquets and the Peabody Essex Museum festival, where Gund Kwok has performed for 15 years or more.^84,116,117 Gund Kwok's style, "mostly Fat San" with Hok San heads because they are cuter, is a mix of the two Cantonese schools.⁵²

China today: Foshan and Guangdong in the 2020s

This section covers the southern lion in mainland China from about 2015 to 2026, with Foshan (佛山, Cant. fat6 saan1, Mand. Fóshān) at the centre. It rests on news reports, heritage-register pages and one Hong Kong travel page. Several local newspaper pages could not be opened, so a few points rest on search-result summaries; those are worded "reported". The older history of the Guangdong lion is earlier in this guide and is not repeated.

Foshan in one view

The official heritage text puts the Guangdong lion's origin in Nanhai (南海, Cant. naam4 hoi2, Mand. Nánhǎi), a district of Foshan. A 2023 profile says Nanhai has more than 3,000 lion troupes, and that Dali town (大瀝/大沥, Mand. Dàlì) has a troupe in almost every village. It also says lion dance and martial arts cannot be separated in Nanhai's southern style.¹ Three kinds of group sit side by side today: village and martial-hall teams, large competition troupes, and school programmes. The Zhonglian association below is the best-known example of the second kind.

The Huang Fei-hung Zhonglian association

The Foshan tutorial series cited in this guide comes from the Foshan Nanhai Huang Fei-hung Zhonglian Cable Martial Arts Dragon and Lion Association (佛山市南海黃飛鴻中聯電纜武術龍獅協會/佛山市南海黄飞鸿中联电缆武术龙狮协会, Cant. fat6 saan1 si5 naam4 hoi2 wong4 fei1 hung4 zung1 lyun4 din6 laam6 mou5 seot6 lung4 si1 hip3 wui6, Mand. Fóshān Shì Nánhǎi Huáng Fēihóng Zhōnglián Diànlǎn Wǔshù Lóngshī Xiéhuì). "Zhonglian" is a sponsor's name, not a place. The table is from one newspaper-style profile of its founder, so it is the team's own account, and the championship counts are self-reported.¹

The profile adds three claims. The Nanhai training base is the largest in China and carries the title China Dragon and Lion Sports Nanhai Training Base. The association has more than ten branches in China and abroad. It has won over 40 international and over 50 national championships. It teaches by age: a basic introduction in kindergarten, basic skills in primary school, performance routines in middle school, and team selection at university. Its maxim is to become a good person first and skilled second (先成人再成才). It names traditional green routines such as the crab green and the snake green (蟹青, 蛇青) and says Huang recorded traditional routines in text, pictures and teaching videos.¹ The profile calls Huang both a fifth-generation and a sixth-generation Wong Fei-hung disciple in different paragraphs, so quote generation counts loosely.

Where to see lions in Foshan now

Lion heads and makers

Heads are still made by hand. He Yubin, about 37 in 2023 and calling himself a sixth-generation maker, runs what he says is the largest lion costume maker in Foshan. He puts wages at 3,000 to 8,000 yuan a month and says the craft is in more danger than the dance.⁶ In Gaoming, Tan Zhiming has made heads for more than 50 years and teaches the craft free.⁷ Young entrants exist too. Zhu Liangwei, born after 1995, leads a dragon and lion team, works in a head workshop and runs a lion-themed tea cafe with his team.⁸ At the 2025 National Games, "Three Kingdoms" lion blind boxes were the top-selling merchandise.⁸ Outside Foshan, a Guangzhou Daily piece describes a model in which left-behind women and elderly villagers make heads for export, and another report ties a Heyuan company run by Chen Jinming, a municipal-level head-craft inheritor, to profit sharing with village households.^9,10

Schools, children and women

School lion dance is called 醒獅進校園/醒狮进校园 (Cant. sing2 si1 zeon3 haau6 jyun4, Mand. xǐngshī jìn xiàoyuán, "lion dance enters campus"). In Guangzhou, primary and secondary schools in all 11 districts offer lion courses. The same Guangzhou Daily piece counts over 30,000 students in lion activities and says the city's dragon and lion association ran programmes in nearly 200 schools in about two years.⁹ A People's Daily piece of August 2024 says lion dance has entered 196 Guangzhou schools, including a primary-school break-time lion routine.¹¹ Summer camps at a lion culture hall in Huangpu draw children from Zhanjiang, Qingyuan and Zhaoqing, and a youth talent contest had over 100 entrants aged about 6 to 16.¹¹

In Nanhai, the vice principal of Qiaobei Middle School, Dai Chunjin (戴春進/戴春进), turns lion steps into PE games, uses drumbeats in music class and puts lion etiquette (獅禮/狮礼) into class meetings. The school's team has performed at the Guangdong Middle School Dragon and Lion Dance Championship.⁸ Students from Henggang Primary School in Shishan town, with 20 lion dancers, performed in the opening of the 8 August 2026 event.⁴

Girls and women. A girls' team in Baiyun, Guangzhou (女子醒獅隊/女子醒狮队, Cant. neoi5 zi2 sing2 si1 deoi2, Mand. nǚzǐ xǐngshī duì) was formally set up by a man named Zhang and his teacher Yu Weizhao to legitimise women in the lion. It has over 20 girls from several villages, aged 7 to 19, with pink and purple heads. In 2021 it beat all-male teams to win first prize at a Baiyun district contest, and in 2022 it took the top junior-group prize for Guangzhou at the 16th Guangdong Games. Bookings were few at first, so the team chose to win competitions to gain acceptance. It trains on Friday and Saturday evenings, 7:30 to 10:00.¹² Elsewhere in Guangdong, a pink "drunken lion" act by two senior-high girls in Raoping went viral in early 2025 (reported).¹³

The competition ladder

Searches for a provincial "super league" (醒獅省超聯賽/醒狮省超联赛) or a Guangdong lion league found nothing under those names. If a coach has seen the name in a video, ask for the video before repeating it.

Government and heritage support

Lion dance (Guangdong lion) entered China's first national intangible heritage list in 2006, and Huang Qintian is listed as Foshan's national representative inheritor (傳承人/传承人, Cant. cyun4 sing4 jan4, Mand. chuánchéngrén).¹⁹ He is also named as a vice chairman of the China Dragon and Lion Sports Association.⁸ In Guangzhou, a 2023 Guangzhou Daily piece calls Zhao Weibin (趙偉斌/赵伟斌, Cant. ziu6 wai5 ban1, Mand. Zhào Wěibīn), fifth generation of the Zhao family lion, a provincial-level inheritor.⁹ Other support seen in the sources is institutional rather than a funding scheme: the 2017 sport-administration standard, the 2025 National Games slot, Nanhai hosting a main national Fitness Day venue in 2026, and Zhangcha's dragon and lion industry alliance and planned museum.^1,15,4,5 No grant amounts for troupes were found.

Heshan and Suixi today

Heshan (鶴山/鹤山, Cant. hok6 saan1, Mand. Hèshān). The Heshan lion head maker Feng Shengqiang is a fifth-generation maker who took over the workshop in 2015, and head making was listed at county level in 2017 and Jiangmen city level in 2022.²⁰ A July 2025 student fieldwork visit to Dongbian village in Gulao town met the president of the Heshan lion heritage hall and a district-level inheritor (reported). One interviewee said short-video platforms reward sudden "traffic" and cannot carry ritual or cultural meaning, and that many folk teams lack anyone to run online content (reported).²¹

Suixi (遂溪, Cant. seoi6 kai1, Mand. Suìxī). Suixi was named a "home of the awakened lion" in 2003, and its lion dance joined the national list in 2006.^22,23 The heritage entry says its form grew from ground lions to bench, high-platform and high-pole lions and then to stake lions, with stakes near 3 m and a span of up to 3.7 m.²³ In September 2024 a group of foreign influencers visited the county's lion protection and inheritance base, where county-level inheritor Li Zujie showed head tying and basic moves.²⁴ A 2008 paper counted 1,630-plus teams in western Guangdong, about 90 percent of them tall-leg lions.²⁵ No current Suixi team count or head output was found.

The film and the internet

雄獅少年/雄狮少年 (Cant. hung4 si1 siu3 nin4, Mand. Xióngshī Shàonián) opened on 17 December 2021, scored 8.3 on Douban and grossed about 250 million yuan.²⁶ A Guangzhou Daily piece calls it the top-rated Chinese-language film on Douban's 2021 list.⁹ A Cantonese stage musical followed in 2024 in Guangzhou.¹¹ The sequel, released 14 December 2024, moved to Shanghai martial arts and grossed about 83 million yuan.²⁷

Coverage of the National Games says the 2021 film has drawn more young people to the sport.⁸ No source gave enrolment or booking numbers from before and after the film, so the size of the effect is not known. For online reach, no Douyin or Bilibili view counts were found. What is documented is smaller: a People's Daily piece describes Guangdong lion videos travelling online and a lion flash mob at Baiyun airport,¹¹ the National Games opening used 100 lions with VR,⁸ and the Raoping "drunken lion" clip circulated widely (reported).¹³

Money

No public price list for troupes, 採青/采青 visits or lion heads in Guangdong was found; earlier in this chapter Malaysia's published prices are the nearest thing. What the mainland sources do show: the 1996 corporate sponsorship that made the Zhonglian troupe professional, with income that gradually stabilised but no figures given;¹ head makers' wages of 3,000 to 8,000 yuan a month;⁶ the Heyuan company, which reported 11.4 million yuan of revenue in 2019 with 637 households sharing profits;¹⁰ and a Gaoming team whose members hold day jobs and train after work, according to its coach (reported).²⁸

Tradition and sport

A People's Daily piece describes the lion as moving toward standardisation, competition and internationalisation, with judging rules adjusted over time. It quotes Guangzhou master Zhao Weibin as saying the art lives only while ordinary people keep loving it.¹¹ Competitions now separate the forms: the National Games had traditional, obstacle and free-routine events,¹⁵ and a Gaoming team reportedly won traditional gold and high-pole silver at one event.²⁸ The Suixi entry is a reminder that the high pole is itself a later development from the ground lion.²³

Sources for this section

1. Profile of Huang Qintian and the Zhonglian dragon and lion association - ctdsb.net (URL dated May 2023; publication name not confirmed), Chinese, newspaper-style profile; the team's own account
2. Foshan Ancestral Temple museum page - wingontravel.com, Traditional Chinese, Hong Kong travel platform reposting a museum notice; undated, mentions 26 May 2026
3. Travel notes on the Wong Fei-hung Lion Art Martial Arts Museum: Qunar and Ctrip - Chinese, undated travel posts seen in search results, not opened
4. Foshan's Nanhai hosts main venue event of 2026 National Fitness Day - Newsgd (Guangdong provincial news site), English, news, 8 Aug 2026 event
5. National Dragon and Lion Dance Carnival kicks off in Chancheng, Foshan - Newsgd, English, news, dated 7 Mar 2026
6. How China's Dancing Lions Get Their Heads - The World of Chinese, English, magazine, June 2023
7. Tan Zhiming, Guangdong Good Person - Yangcheng Evening News, Chinese, newspaper, 10 Apr 2023
8. Lion dance at the 15th National Games, Foshan zone - Science and Technology Daily (Guangdong), Chinese, newspaper, 14 Nov 2025
9. Guangzhou lion dance feature - Guangzhou Daily (Dayoo), Chinese, newspaper, 1 Feb 2023
10. Heyuan lion head company feature - Our China Story, Chinese, Hong Kong media feature; revenue and household figures not independently checked
11. Lion dance as a youthful folk art - People's Daily, Chinese, newspaper, 29 Aug 2024
12. Lioness dance: breaking tradition with grace - Baiyun District government site, English, 6 Mar 2024
13. Raoping girls' "drunken lion" act - Yangcheng Evening News, Chinese, newspaper, 26 Feb 2025; headline and summary seen in search results, page not opened
14. 9th Guangzhou Youth Lion Performance Contest, "Rise of the Lion" theme - Yangcheng Evening News, Chinese, newspaper; the page returned no text, so only the headline and a search summary were seen
15. National Games lion dance in Foshan - Xinhua, Chinese, state news agency, 14 Nov 2025
16. 2022 national youth dragon and lion dance championship, Shenzhen - Shenzhen government site, Chinese; seen in search results, page not opened
17. 6th World Dragon and Lion Dance Championships, Pudong - Shanghai government news page (English version at zfxw_detail_en.jsp?id=3253), seen in search results, page not opened; organiser not confirmed
18. 澳門獅王爭霸賽 (Macau Lion King Championship) - zh.wikipedia, Chinese, encyclopedia
19. Lion dance (Guangdong lion), Foshan entry - China intangible cultural heritage register, Chinese, official
20. Heshan lion head craft - Tencent News, Chinese, news, 4 Jul 2026
21. Heshan lion art fieldwork report - China.com finance news, Chinese, 2 Aug 2025; seen in search results, page not opened
22. Into the "hometown of the awakened lion" (Suixi) - China Daily Chinese edition, newspaper, 23 Sep 2024
23. Lion dance (Guangdong lion), Suixi entry - China intangible cultural heritage register, Chinese, official
24. Foreign influencers visit the Suixi lion base - China Daily Chinese edition, newspaper, 24 Sep 2024
25. Features and development of Guangdong traditional tall-leg lion - Journal of Physical Education (South China Normal University), Chinese, academic paper, 2008
26. 雄狮少年 - zh.wikipedia, Chinese, encyclopedia
27. 雄狮少年2 - zh.wikipedia, Chinese, encyclopedia
28. National Games lion dance report - Yangtze Evening News, Chinese, newspaper, 17 Nov 2025; the Gaoming team result and coach comment come from a search summary, page not opened