DRAGONS would roam these streets.

One would have a hundred men carrying the head and lightweight canvas from Binondo Church in Manila, dancing on paved roads beginning and ending at Ongpin Street.

Standing on the sidelines and mingling among the crowd and onlookers would be the dragonmakers.

Sixteen of them who built what is claimed to be the biggest dragon headgear yet, painted with glistening bloody red paint, this Chinese New Year would bring out the best in Filipino craftsmanship.

“This is his best creation yet. I think he gave it all, knowing there’s a one-in-a-million chance he’ll get to see another dragon year,” Arman Lutrania said of his mentor, Nicanor Leung.

Leung, 53, lightly slaps the gray beret on Lutrania’s shoulder before putting it on and gazing back at their current masterpiece sitting atop a metal table at the heart of Binondo, three days before the rising of the first full moon of the year.

They still have two days to go before their dragon gets to be danced by 40 men—one carrying the 20-kilo headgear and the last to carry the tail. Lutrania, officer in charge of another crew, the Filipino-Chinese Tong Sun Dragon and Lion Dance Group, is credited with crafting the latter.

Leung is his own crew, he says, relying only on hand-picked dragonmakers like Lutrania and others scattered in this bustling community of nearly 3,000 residents.

On Sunday, the eve of the Chinese New Year, Lutrania and Leung know the dragonmakers would eye each other’s handiwork.

“Every dragon or lion headgear you make, there’s a part of you that’s in it, as we believe there are also spirits in each we work on,” Leung told the BusinessMirror on the second floor of their workshop, one of the unpainted tenement-style housing structures in Binondo, Manila.

Leung, who grew up in what’s also known as Chinatown, is one of many known and respected dragonmakers. And like them, he acquired the craft from a mentor, whom he calls Master Chang. He’s now passing the craft and skills to Lutrania, 37, who began as a lion dancer when he was 10 years old.

“You can tell just by looking at a headgear who designed and crafted it,” Lutrania said in Tagalog, adding that Leung has a trademark that many tried to copy but no one perfected.

He pointed to the dragon’s cheekbones that mimicked the muscles above the jaw as only Leung was able to create.

“In other headgear, they just paint the cheekbones. Here, there’s a three-dimensional effect.”

And although he’s been crafting headgear of dragons and lions for the past 44 years, Leung is still antsy with this latest creation.

“It’s not yet finished,” the 5'7" lean Filipino-Chinese said of the work before him.

To the normal eye, the headgear of the dragon, made out of paper glued to follow a bamboo skeletal structure, is finished.

The thick bushy eyebrows, made of synthetic black hair imported from China, have been fastened on top of two eyes that automatically lit up when the headgear is lifted and power down when at rest.

The 28 white-painted fangs, the two biggest of which measure by a foot, give the dragon a permanent menacing smile. The left and right mustache extending from the snout and framing the muscled cheeks also gives out a red glowing light when electricity is fed into it from a generator tailing the dragon’s tail.

The black mustache on its chin, also made of imported hair, adds to finally make the dragon resemble one of the Chinese’s gods that Lutrania said holds a three-pronged scepter and is clad in red and black.

Leung is credited with creating the hollow mold, made of bamboo sticks tied together, that measures 31 inches in diameter.

But they had to replace the bamboo pole used to hold the head from inside with a stainless-steel pipe.

“The last two broke when we asked one of the dancers to swing it,” Leung said.

The head should be maneuverable to follow a red ball a lead dancer would wield from a decorated pole.

“The red ball is part of the dance; dragons and lions are fixated on eating the ball as it would give them energy, life and power to ward off evil spirits,” Lutrania explained.

Leung said he expects two men would have to alternate every 16 minutes in carrying the head.

“They should be conditioned, primed, have healthy lungs and focused on giving the best dance this dragon deserves.”

As heavy as it is, the dragon head’s importance is such since the body would have to undulate with the head’s lead, revealing a seamless ripple, rise and fall and making the dragon alive, Lutrania explained further.

The science applied by these dragonmakers is fused with a certain mysticism as Leung said he didn’t use any ruler or measuring device to make the eyes and jaw proportioned.

The image of this dragon just came to him one night intoxicated with Leung’s favorite elixir: gin.

“He’s a genius when not sober,” Lutrania said, referring to Leung as one of Binondo’s “Drunken Masters.”

Sans a sketch and through smoky vision, Leung began making the skeleton of the dragon’s head.

“Hindi ko magagawa ’yan ng ‘normal’ ako,” he tells the BusinessMirror before sucking on a menthol cigarette.

He also can’t explain why but each dragon or lion head that Leung has made is unique in design and features. The red and black dragon’s head staring agape toward a Chinese temple is his biggest yet, he says.

It was also almost his biggest failure.

The insurance company who paid them P150,000 to craft this dragon ordered them to change the color from orange to red because the former was associated with a rival insurance firm.

“He wanted to give up and return the money,” said Lutrania, one of those involved in creating the longest dragon papier-mâché—a hundred men is required to carry it.

But the dragonmakers’ affinity with their creation prompted Leung to push on.

“Every dragon we make already has spirits in it. That’s why in the old days, they are burned after every dance to appease the spirits,” Leung said.

Hence, every dragon or lion papier-mâché is brought to a Buddhist temple to be blessed. Not one can be brought out and made to dance before a ritual is performed.

A red round paper is placed on the eyes so it can see; on the tongue so it can breathe; and, on the forehead so it can be all-knowing, Leung explained.

“The spirits will take over and give the energy to the dancers.”

By that time, Leung, Lutrania and the 14 craftsmen who worked on the War Dragon papier-mâché would be admiring their creation from the sidewalk or on roofs of buildings that have sprouted from this former swamp to which Spanish colonizers relegated the Chinese centuries ago.

They would only able to recall the 12-hour work gluing paper over paper five days straight; the nights they waited for the glue—made from starch—to dry, like lovers sharing swigs of one bottle under a starry sky.

Leung said it takes an average 14 days to produce a dragon papier-mâché. They’re on their 15th day two days before the eve of the Chinese New Year.

But by that time, they would only be able to rest sinewy arms, uncontrollably flinching and twitching at every swing of the dragon’s head as it passes by every store, every house in these cinnamon-scented streets.

They would beam with pride, not only for themselves, but for each and every craftsman, each and every dancer, and each and every Filipino, Chinese and Filipino-Chinese.

“There are many dragonmakers in Asia: better-equipped than us, better-funded than us and better-manned than us,” Leung said.

“We are doing what we’ve been doing for years because we believe our country’s dragonmakers are the best. We’re proud of that.”