Lion Dance at My Pad

This year around, I am ending the Chinese New Year with a Bang on the last day of the 15 days celebration. Usually on Chap Goh Meh, it'll only be a quiet event for my family but this year, we have a lion dance troupe coming to the house and the best thing was - it's FREE! Yeah I didn't need to pay anything for the Lion Dance performance because I was one of the 3 lucky winners from Maybank CNY Facebook contest which I have written about it before.

Dad was ecstatic when he knew I won the contest. He was not after the cash but the lion dance performance. Haha...

I have not only one but two lions!

After receiving the good news on last Friday about winning the grand prize, my mom and I decide that we should also serve breakfast during the performance. Due to time constraints, we bought some nasi lemak and roti canai from a mamak shop and I made something special for this ocassion. I woke up at 7am and started preparing some canapes. One of them was the foie gras tositos where I pan seared the foie gras and cut them into smaller cubes to fit into the tositos cups. The other dish is nachos chips with tomatoes and mushroom dippings. Easy to make and tasty!

Relatives, neighbours, and parents' friends turned up in the morning.

The performance was supposed to start at 9am but the representative from Maybank was late due to getting lost. Didn't know that my house location was that bad! Hahah... In the end, the performance started at 10am and it starts with the lions hiding behind the cars on the other side of the road. How cute!

We had to hang the lettuce and also the ang pow for the lions to retrieve. This is also called "Choi Cheng" which is the art of picking greens and it's the epitome of a lion dance performance.

Nice lions right? The black and gold trimmings does remind me of Maybank. Lol..


After they picked the greens, they handed me the stem of the lettuce. In Chinese, it means "sam" which is the heart of the lettuce. The lettuce in Chinese has the same meaning as "life & growth" and thus the stems is considered as something auspicious.

Maybank has also sent some videographers to capture the whole performance and after that they did a short interview with me. The highlight of this event is of course the handling of a red packet from the bank's representative to me. It's a RM888 ang pow. Not only I get a free lion performance, I even get a big fat ang pow! How naisss....

Thank you Maybank!