Lion Dancers Can Make a Lot of Money?

Since lion dances are a sticking point during Chinese New Year, they’ll never go out of style and dance troupes are always in demand. “Those who have passed their beginner’s level exams novices can get paid RM30/day while advanced performers can expect up to RM200/day during CNY. During non-CNY periods, novices get paid RM30/show whereas advanced performers get paid RM100/show,” Angok adds. Advanced performers might get paid even more during acrobatic performances, which require them to dance on poles!

And this doesn’t even include the actual angpow money given by bystanders and clients. Let’s not even talk about the prize money given during competitions. Last year, the cash prize awarded during the Genting World Lion Dance Championship 2016 amounted to a whooping RM40,519.50. Even the eight finalist teams got consolation cash prizes of more than RM4,000 each. As we say in Cantonese, fatt-dat loh!
But It's Not As Easy As You Think...

Though the life of a dancer does seem glamorous – travelling all over the country and the world for competitions and earning lots of money – it also takes some money to get there. Most competition organizers don’t cover airfare and other miscellaneous expenses so the associations have to absorb the costs. Competition is stiff. And there are so many new 'lion dance associations' popping up now. “All it takes nowadays is to pay a small fee and get 10 people to sign and you can register a lion dance association,” Fong says. He notes that there are many con artists who wish to make some quick moolah from doing lion dances during Ch5nese New Year.