Tongliang dragon

The Tongliang dragon is a made object before it is a symbol: a body framed in bamboo strips, covered in white silk or cotton paper, painted along spine, scales and belly, with a head carrying eyes, horns, gills and whiskers and a tongue that holds a pearl. The big writhing dragon usually has 24 sections standing for the 24 solar terms and runs more than 50 metres, and it can be lengthened to 50 or 100 sections. The dance sprouted in the Tang, rose in the Ming and reached its height in the Qing, and a Ming-Qing proverb paired the Bodhisattvas of Dazu with the dragons of Tongliang. In 2006 it entered the first national intangible heritage list as item III-4.