Fire Dragon Festival in Vancouver’s Chinatown

People participate in a dance at the Fire Dragon Festival in Vancouver’s Chinatown on Saturday. The dance can be traced back 140 years to the village of Hai Tang, in Hong Kong. ‘The Fire Dragon is a symbol of this community’s resilience and how it has come together to fight against racism and to create something special as we begin to recover from the pandemic,’ according to Charmaine Yip, executive director at Vancouver Chinatown BIA Society.

The Fire Dragon Dance is part of the Fire Dragon Festival and Noodlecious Festival presented by Presented by the City of Vancouver’s Chinatown Legacy Stewardship Group’s Culture and Heritage working group, in collaboration with the Vancouver Chinatown BIA Society (VCBIA), Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, the Chinese Cultural Centre and Chinatown Society Heritage Building Association.

Charmaine Yip, executive director at Vancouver Chinatown BIA Society spoke to the crowd about the origins of the Fire Dragon Dance which is traced back 140-years in the village of Tai Hang, in Hong Kong. “ After suffering from a storm, the people of Pok Fu Lam Village were attacked by a pyton that destroyed the village's peace. The villagers caught and killed the pyton but in the days following it’s death, plague broke out in Tai Hang. In a dream, Buddha appeared to an elderly villager and said a Fire Dragon was to be created and inserted with incense and danced to drive away the plague. Today, we know that the only way to end disease is to follow your doctor’s advice as well as Provincial Health Orders, but 140 years ago, this was how the tradition of the Fire Dragon first began.”

Jimmy Jeong for The Globe and Mail.

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