3/26/1989
Bum @ Walter Johnson High School
http://www.xanga.com/Ignorant _FOOL/

Joined: September, 2005
Position: Lion Head, Cymbal

"I don't know how I was first asked to join East Rising, but one thing was for certain:  I really like lion dance.  It all started when I went to WMACS, first introduced to me by the Orange Crew girls from our youth group, LOCF .  At camp was a lion dance class taught by Mokyi, also a member of LOCF.  I realized how much I liked lion dance (and how much wushu stumped me) when I was bummed out that the first LD class was taking overtime to learn new things.  To compensate for that loss, I was extremely eager to do a lion dance part in a talent show skit between four of us guys in the B6 group: Me, Derek Ho, Uhsen Li and Jon Lin, who I dubbed the "Four Musketeers" (which Mokyi persistenly insisted should be "Munchkins")  In our talent show we incorporated all the classes that we took, including Lion Dance.  The night before the show, the camp had a pizza party.  We decided to rummage through the trash and retrieve enough boxes to make "ghetto lion heads" for our act.  We set up our workshop in Mokyi's room, asking him for advice on how to make heads and where to cut/tape, then moved the heads to our rooms to work on from dusk till dawn.  We got no ounce of sleep and found all we could and put it on the lion; red streamer paper for the beard, cone water cups for the horn and ears, black trash bags for the rest of the body.  We were so proud of our work that we paraded through the dorm building when it was time for the rest of the camp to wake up, with the usual response of "wtf..." from onlookers.  Unfortunately, we didn't win the talent show prize, but rumor has it that we were one vote away from the winners, the Orange Crew girls.  In the end it doesn't matter, since we had a great time.  I discovered my passion for lion dance and joined East Rising in September.  Since then we've had great practices, great performances, unforgettable experiences and strange terminology affiliated with things that've happened during our performances, such as "sketchy time" when I winked at little kids while freestyling and "indecent exposure" when Liz ended the routine as Big Head with her robe flying open.  Lion dance has been a great experience, and I continue to value every moment learning, performing, and having fun."