How a 125-metre dragon brings the Lougoon family together each year

You wouldn’t call it a conventional family reunion, but it’s one the Lougoon family cherish.

Once a year, they help wrangle a dragon in Bendigo’s Easter Sunday parade.

On with the parade: Carolyn Holmes, 8, (front) among three generations of the Lougoon family in Bendigo.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

The dragon, named Dai Gum Loong, may be mythical but in a way, it’s a living creature.

More than 120 people carry the 125-metre beast along the 1.4-kilometre route through Bendigo’s CBD.

These carriers, who intermittently swap with mates, meander along as Dai Gum Loong does, while avoiding hitting street poles and the carrier in front.

Chief dragon wrangler Doug Lougoon, who walks ahead of the dragon with a two-way radio, says while it’s chaotic and accompanied by cymbals, drums and firecrackers, somehow, it works.

At the parade’s end, when Dai Gum Loong has been reversed into the Golden Dragon Museum and put to sleep for another year, it’s time for the humans to socialise.

On Easter Sunday night, the Lougoon clan, who travel from all over Australia, head to a relative’s house for traditional Chinese food, such as chicken’s feet soup and sticky pork.

Their ancestor, Samuel Louey Goon, also known as Samuel Lougoon, migrated from a village near Taishan in southern China in the late 1880s.

Samuel may not have discovered gold, but he prospered.

Dai Gum Loong, the dragon that will be awakened for the Easter Sunday parade, in Bendigo’s Golden Dragon Museum.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

He became a cook, then a market gardener at Myers Flat, near Bendigo, and in 1912, he bought land and grew cabbages and tomatoes.

Samuel and Mary Ellen Lougoon in 1895 with two of their sons, Percy and Clarence.

Samuel married Mary Ellen Maher, who had Scottish and Irish heritage, and from 1893, they had 10 children, of whom Doug’s father, Lyle, born in 1919, was the youngest.

The Bendigo Easter Festival, with its vibrant parade on Easter Sunday, started in 1871 as a fair to raise money for the local hospital.

Samuel Lougoon’s great-granddaughter, Ashlee Lougoon, an occupational therapist at Bendigo Hospital, is proud the festival still raises funds for the hospital, and is proud to represent her heritage.

“The Bendigo Chinese culture is so unique, given that there’s the goldfields flavour,” said Ashlee, who this year has a key role – carrying the ceremonial flame that coaxes dragon Dai Gum Loong along the parade route.

Ashlee’s father, Doug, said the Chinese community had joined the parade from the late 1870s partly as a way to give back to the hospital that had helped them.

The dragon, Dai Gum Loong, whose name means “big golden dragon”, in 2019 replaced Sun Loong, or new dragon, which had served since 1970. Sun Loong replaced Loong or Gum Loong (Golden Dragon), which had served since at least 1901.

Loong, the imperial dragon, threads its way through the Bendigo Easter parade in 1946.Credit: Golden Dragon Museum, Bendigo

Lougoon descendant Carolyn Holmes, 8, is excited she will walk behind a float that carries princesses, wearing a silk cheongsam. It’s her third parade. “It’s so much fun,” said Carolyn. “It’s so cool and big.”

City of Greater Bendigo Mayor Andrea Metcalf said the Lougoons’ contribution to the festival was remarkable. “What a wonderful living legacy from one family,” Metcalf said.

Bendigo Easter Festival is on from April 18 to 21. The parade starts at 12.30pm on Easter Sunday.

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