Scenes of Chinese New Year II

This chap here wearing a laughing buddha mask is an important team member in the lion dancer's troupe. Laughing Buddha will interact with the crowd and show the lion where to get its "food" of chinese lettuce ("sang choy" which sounds like prosperity vegetable when pronounced in cantonese), mandarin oranges ("kum" which sounds like the word gold) and of course Angpow.

Toddler loves to watch the lion dance. She would rush to the lion to try to pet it, not at all afraid of the loud drums and cymbals. I guess it must be because while I was expecting her, I stood right next to the drums during a lion dance at a friend's house. After that I could not sleep the whole night and was worried for days afterwards that I had damaged the baby's hearing by being so dumb to stand right beside such a deafening noise. I went to check the web to find out when baby's ears and hearing are developing etc etc.. (*rolls eyes*) Its funny to think about now but at the time I was really extremely worried!

One starts to worry about one's kids as soon as they are conceived, even when they are in the womb and throughout their lives. Sometimes the things we worry about are quite ridiculous :-P