Posted by Adam Quinan on February 19, 2015 at 16:49:11 user Adam.
Today is the Chinese Lunar New Year, one of the occasions when the Dragon Dance is performed.
In ML, Ransome describes the dragon skin as covering the bodies of the dancers as they wind their way around. See the end of chapter picture at the end of Chapter 24 and the pictures of the S&As in the small whichdragon skin show the legs with their heads up in the body.
However, pictures of Dragon dancers show that the body is much skinnier and a tube held aloft on bamboo poles while the dancers are quite visible and not covered up at all.
Here is a YouTube link of a Dragon Dance
The Lion Dance is only for two people. but in that case the dancers are hidden from view in the lion. See this video of a Lion dance
So what did Ransome see and describe? Are there older styles of Dragon dance which are more like the Lion dance? Or did he confuse the two accidentally or on purpose for some plot reason?
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