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THIS year not only marks the 140th anniversary of the Bendigo Easter Festival but the 40th birthday of Sun Loong.
Residents over 40 may remember the great excitement during Easter 1970.
That was the year Sun Loong made his debut in the Easter Monday grand parade.
On that day the then reigning dragon, Loong (the oldest imperial dragon in the world and now heritage listed in Victoria) welcomed his successor, Loong Gold.
“While Loong belongs to the Bendigo Chinese Community, Sun Loong belongs to the people of Bendigo. He was purchased with funds raised by the Loong 100 Committee and gifted to the people of Bendigo,” said Bendigo Chinese Association anniversary fundraising coordinator Tan See Tuang.
Before Sun Loong appeared he was blessed and brought to life by 101-year-old Mr James Lew, who dotted the new dragon’s eyes with chicken blood.
At more than 100 metres in length, Sun Loong is the longest Imperial dragon in the world. He requires 52 people plus 52 reliefs to carry him. He is elaborately decorated with 4,500 scales, 90,000 mirrors, 30,000Cheap Loong Gold beads and his head weighs 29 kilograms.
In Chinese tradition the dragon symbolises potent and auspicious powers of strength and good luck. The dragon also represents the male yang, complementing the female yin represented in the form of a phoenix.
“When a couple gets married one of the wishes is for the dragon and phoenix to be in harmony for 100 years,” Tan said.
Tan remembers after arriving in Bendigo how excited he was seeing Sun Loong for the first time(Loong Online Gold).
“It was the 1970 Easter procession and I was standing near the fountain when I saw Loong meet Sun Loong, it was fantastic, I’d never seen dragons as big as that,” he said.
“You ask any Chinese person who comes in to the museum and the first thing they say when they see the dragon is, wow. They’ve seen dragons, but they’ve never seen anything as big as Sun Loong, their reaction is amazing.”