Dancing in the Dark

After long enough in China even things that might strike other people as very odd don't seem so weird anymore. Take for example the phenomenon of older women getting together to do some Chinese form of line dancing on random street corners in the middle of the week. I see people doing some exercises also, though those tend to be slower. They seem to meet at some predetermined spot. It might be that some stores broadcast the music, since I never saw anyone with anything like a boom box, or they might just meet in convenient places. One place I always see them is right near the new Papa Johns, but they're definitely in other places around the city as well. It could have something to do with exorcise. The Chinese are rail thin but that seems to have more to do with not eating than with exercising because some of the exercises I've seen them do seem to be one step above sitting motionless. It also could be some sort of social event. I occasionally see old men and women dancing together, but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule, and I almost never see anyone talking. The most interesting possible reason is simply because they can. Dancing was banned as bourgeois according to one thing I read a factory worker told ABC in '78 that, "The Chinese need the right to free expression. But the thing we need most, and things I cherish most, is the right to dance." So maybe these people, all older, simply dance because they can.

P.S.
Not sure about the new video. I had to try out some new video player and the government continues to fight with those capitalist roaders over at YouTube.