From the Lion in the Street
My dearest …,
There are two people under me and they have been practising since autumn, and we came down your road this morning with the drum going and did not miss a single doorway. We stopped at yours a beat longer than most, because of who lives behind it: .
You may be wondering why a lion, and why so loud. It is because of Nian. The old story says a monster came out of the mountains at the turn of every year and took whatever it wanted from the villages — and that someone eventually worked out it was frightened of three things: loud noise, fire, and the colour red. So people got very loud, and very red, and the monster stopped coming.
So the noise is not decoration, . The noise is the point. Everything you will hear today — the drums, the firecrackers, the lion clattering its jaw at your door — is the sound of a village that got tired of being afraid and decided to make more noise than the thing that was frightening it.
Before today somebody in your house swept it out completely, and then put the broom away — because you clear out last year's bad luck before the new year starts, and then you stop, so you do not sweep the new luck straight back out of the door.
from under the lion's head —
P.S. — The red envelope matters more than what is inside it. Take it with both hands, and do not open it in front of the person who gave it to you.