One Man’s Hobby, a Culture’s History

Truong Ha is a man of many faces.

A gold lion mask with Pepto-Bismol-pink eyebrows and orange hair twisted with red ribbon. A lime green face with colorful, shaggy ears and a long yarn goatee. And his personal favorite, a red dragon with whiskers made of pompoms glued to springs.

A hobby? Sure. But Ha’s collection of dragon heads and lion masks is also an effort to preserve a cultural icon and a traditional dance that has withered in popularity as the years have passed.

“I want to keep the Vietnamese tradition,” said Ha, who grew up in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) and now lives in Westminster with his wife. “I enjoy bringing good luck to others.”

His collection of 15 dragon and lion costumes--so bulky that he stows most in friends’ garages--is in demand throughout the year. The festive masks are worn in performances to usher in luck at weddings, during history lessons for students and at grand openings for businesses. Business is brisk this month as Asians celebrate the Lunar New Year, which falls on Tuesday.

Ha’s love for the regal and colorful masks began when he was a child. He said he took kung fu classes but his family couldn’t afford the pricier dragon dance sessions. Still, Ha said, he attended annual Tet celebrations and watched with interest, wishing that he were the one carrying the mask at the head of the parade.

He fled Vietnam in 1989 and joined his family in Yorba Linda, where he landed a job as an assembler. One of his first purchases was a red dragon mask he found in Chinatown in Los Angeles for $570. He adds to the collection almost every year, a habit made necessary because the fragile masks tend to deteriorate quickly.

Ha now leads a dance group and teaches others the art of carrying the cumbersome dragon heads.

“It takes a lot of strength, health and good acting,” said Ha, who works as a computer parts inspector. “The art is to act like a dragon, to display its moods.”

The masks vary in size and color. Red, a lucky color, is the standard pick during New Year’s. White is the norm for a wedding, and green for a school function.

The masks are made of papier-mache and bamboo sticks and typically weigh about 10 pounds.

A performance is elaborate, a mixture of kung fu and dance. Two people can perform the lion dance, but it takes a small team to pull off the dragon dance, which involves squads of people handling the head, the body and the tail; musicians, who lead the procession; and a lone dancer who teases the dragon forward with a fan. The dance is meant to expel evil spirits before a festival or celebration.

But the craft’s popularity is slumping. The teams are expensive to maintain, the training is time-consuming and there is a shortage of instructors. Historically, students begin training as young as 7 and hone the skills until adulthood, said Binh Thieu Tran, who has taught dragon dancing for more than 50 years.

“It takes a lot of time, so many people are afraid to get into it,” said Tran, 74. “Most students are young boys. The ones in their 20s and 30s can’t jump and don’t have the strength anymore.”

Ha admits that he is not as strong as he once was, but the ability to entertain and display a sense of history and community keeps him practicing daily. Ha and his group, Quang Linh Lion Dance Troupe, will perform an opening show at the Tet Festival in Garden Grove on Feb. 15.

“It brings good luck to our community and pride in our culture,” Ha said. “It takes a lot of practice and dedication to do it right, but it’s a great feeling to see everyone smiling.”