A Short Letter Home

Dancing 'neath the milky moon

Another week, another change. They packed up "Tent Mall" this week. They started vacating on Monday, and despite some stubborn ones eking out an extra day or two of sales, were completely gone by Thursday morning. (Well, they did leave some trash behind.) So all that day, we were wondering if the street dancers would return to their usual spot. Like I mentioned just after Christmas, they had continued to dance (and block traffic) while Tent Mall was setting up. But once the stalls opened for business, there was no dancing to be seen. Unfortunately, that didn't change Thursday evening, leaving the street seem more deserted than ever.

So Friday night, Yau Neih decided a quest was in order. In times past, the dancers had gathered nightly save for nights when it was raining. On one such night, though, we had heard some of their regular tunes wafting over the rice paddies. Yau Neih thought this indicated that they had some alternate dancing spot. She had often talked about trying to track that place down, but it wasn't until now that she managed to do so. After supper and dishes we ventured forth and headed north, from where we kind of, sort of heard the music coming that one night weeks before. The neighborhood seemed quite dead, especially for a Friday night. Of course, I had to remind myself that it was the middle of January and most of the folks here were not raised in cold, northern lands. Anyway, that neighborhood proved to be a bust, so next we thought to head to a city park that had just opened up a couple of weeks ago.

When we arrived there, sure enough, there were people dancing. Of course, being removed from their usual setting, it was difficult to tell if they were "our" dancers or some other group. We didn't recognize the song, which was being led by some guy waving little pink pom-poms. It was a smaller group than had been showing up at the intersection. Also, many of the people were wearing some sort of ID badge--like all of the airport employees had just got off of work and started getting down in the park. It seemed different enough that we hung back and stood and watched for a while. The first thing we realized was that the song and dance that they were performing was a new one. We had witnessed the teaching of a new dance before. They play the song over and over in an attempt to get it right. So we listened to this disco-y style tune play over and over again. Rather tedious, but we were busy looking for familiar faces rather than watching the performance.

Bit by bit we started to recognize folks, and finally we saw the two ladies who had taken Yau Neih under their wing. One was in the crowd of dancers, the other--who speaks a little English and will smack you one if you're out of step--was off to the side with a handful of people who were doing a ballroom style dance. She soon caught sight of us and came over to greet us. She, too, had an ID tag. I couldn't read any of it, of course, but it included a picture of a group of dancers. An official dancers I.D. Yau Neih tried to ask our friend about it, but she just acknowledged its existence and dropped the subject. She then hurried back to her waiting partner and we stayed and watched the circle. Finally, they stopped running the new song and started up with some more familiar tunes. Our friend then went back to the circle and motioned us over. We weren't sure if untagged people were allowed, but figured we'd trust her invitation. At one point our friend broke ranks and pointed us out to one of the dudes in the middle of the circle. I suspect it was to grant us special dispensation or something. Anyway, the guy smiled and nodded to us, and our friend rejoined the circle. At nine, when the dancing ended, we asked again if we needed an ID. Our other friend seemed to hesitate, but the first said that we didn't need one. (Sometimes it's good to be the foreigner.) We also confirmed that the park was the new dance hall for our group.

On the way back, Yau Neih and I tried to sort things out. I speculated that maybe the dancers had offended the powers that be by blocking traffic when Tent Mall started. Maybe that's why they had to move and now need permits. Or maybe it's just that the local authorities have finally cracked down on what had been an unregulated gathering. We had no way of knowing. We did finally decide that we'd visit the group again, but be certain to be carrying our passports and some cash in case we suddenly have to get our own "dance tickets". In a way, it's kind of depressing. It was delightful to discover a group of folks who, to our eyes, had just decided to take over a section of little used street and have some fun. So much different from Seattle where they'd probably have to have a permit,insurance, environmental studies, public hearings and stuff like that. But now it's more "developed" and suddenly not as fun. Ah, well, it's better than nothing.

posted by John @ 6:52 AM