License to boogie
We interrupt this belated account of last month's activities to bring you some breaking news.We are now duly licensed dancers with the... um, well, you know, the street dancers. (I haven't translated the tag yet, so I don't if there's an official name.) If you'll recall, I mentioned that after an unwanted Christmas break, we had to track down our local street dancers to a new park in town. I recounted how they seemed to be licensed, with every one wearing an I.D. tag. It made us a tad paranoid at the time. But when we mentioned it to Thad, he said it was probably just an internal thing. So about once a week we've sauntered over to the park and have always been invited to join the circle. (It did seem that other folks--without tags--have been shooed away, but that could just be an imaginative misinterpretation on my part.) It's been nice.
Anyway, last night we wandered over to the park and, as is our custom, we stood outside the circle and watched the dance in progress. A gent sitting on a planter next to us immediately motioned for us to go join in. We smiled and declined--like I said, it's our habit not to jump in on a dance in progress. We also tend to wait for an invitation from someone in the circle. (So when the cops come we have someone to point at.) Tonight, however, one of the dance leaders in the center of the circle invited us in. So we obviously had no excuse. We danced a couple of tunes in the outer circle until we happened to see one of our friends. We then stuck close to her for most of the rest of the evening. (I got lost once, toward the end. The circles sometimes "jump tracks" and I let people cut in line or even force me into another circle. Chaka raka de.) Towards the end, however, someone from the center of the circle came toward us--in mid-song--and draped an official I.D. over our necks. They really like us!
I have to admit, I have sort of coveted those I.D.'s. I don't know why, since the nametags in China have sort of creeped me out. It seems everybody who works behind a counter here has a tag and it seems that every tag is simply a number. (Of course, I do admit that if there's Chinese characters on a tag, I couldn't tell if it was someone's name or a biohazard warning.) The dancer I.D. is similar, with a number and the ever present red star stamp. There is a space for our name and a poor quality picture of some people dancing, though, so maybe that makes up for it. Or maybe it's just the thought as being accepted. Or maybe it's just scoring a unique souvenir. Whatever the reason, we were quite pleased to be tagged. I just hope that this doesn't mean that we have to attend club business meetings....Update 2/22/06: Despite the fact that I have more important tasks awaiting me, I managed to use my English-Chinese dictionary to translate my tag. The name of the street dancing organization is "Facing Deep Blue City Ethnic New Art Hit Song Team". I think I'll keep calling them the street dancers....
posted by John @ 4:48 AM
<< Home