Performance «Lân Sư Rồng lên Mai Hoa Thung» (Lion Dance on High Poles)

   The lion on the poles is the hardest and the finest thing in Vietnamese festive dance: two performers inside one lion costume leap from post to post at head height, and a single lost beat is visible to the whole hall. In Hai Phong that routine is staged in a shopping centre atrium, where you can stand right at the edge of the floor.

   A professional lion dance troupe carries the evening. The core of the routine is Mai Hoa Thung — a rig of steel poles of differing heights that the lion crosses in jumps. It is the most technical part of the craft and is usually saved for the climax. The second twist is rhythm: instead of the usual drum, gong and cymbals alone, part of the routine runs over beatbox.

   What the programme holds:

• — a routine by a professional lion dance troupe;
• — lion dance combined with beatbox;
• — the lion crossing the Mai Hoa Thung poles;
• — lan phat loc — at the close the lion comes down to the audience and hands out tokens of luck;
• — a prize draw for guests of the centre's receipt-collecting promotion.

   The evening is built for families with children: a lion needs no translation, and the jumps hold the attention of even the youngest watchers. If you plan to photograph, take a spot to the side of the floor — the whole line of poles reads from there.

   Lion, unicorn and dragon dance comes out into the street on the biggest dates of the Vietnamese year — Tet and Tet Trung thu, which this year is less than three weeks away. The pole rig belongs to the southern school of lion dance and demands acrobatic conditioning from the pair: one carries the head, the other the tail, and the leap has to be shared to the breath. For a Vietnamese audience the lion on the poles reads as more than a stunt: the luck goes to the pair that took the leap and held it.

   Watching costs nothing and needs no ticket — anyone in the centre can walk up. The draw itself is another matter: it is open only to guests who collected receipts in the Gom hoa don doi qua promotion between 28 August and 2 September. Winners are called by name on the spot, an absent holder forfeits the coupon, and claiming a prize needs both halves of the slip plus an identity document. The centre says the draw will be streamed live on its Facebook page.

   The floor is set in Sanh Hai Dang, the ground-floor atrium and the centre's main event space. AEON MALL Hai Phong Le Chan is itself the first and largest Japanese shopping centre in the port city; by the centre's own figures it holds 158,000 sq m of floor and close to two hundred outlets.

   One Sunday evening, a rig of steel poles and two lions — a fair way to let the moon season start a little early.