While strolling through the park
This past weekend we got to catch our favorite band, Balkanarama, at an arts festival in Kirkland. Attending a fair or festival was not on our agenda for this summer, but we really wanted to get their latest CD and they weren't scheduled at Georgia's this month. The festival was a bit interesting. I wasn't really psyched for it, so browsing the booths wasn't as fun as it has been at past festivals. I couldn't help but compare them with the street fair that we encountered in Yunnan. The Kirkland booths were so clean and tidy and, well, bland. It seemed like every booth was using the same white canopy. Back "home" the canopies were more colorful. Not colorful in the exotic-ethnic-design sort of sense but colorful in the this-patterned-sheet-was-on-sale sort of sense. Yunnan hucksters also pack a lot more merchandise into their booths. (Well, heck, China itself is overall more compact than the States.)Anyway, we got to the park early enough to browse the booths and then settled down to catch the show. The band was great, as usual, despite the fact that Amir had left the band and Matty was elsewhere. The crowd seemed rather sparse, and one brave soul got up and started line dancing. I thought to join him, being emboldened by my months of dancing with the Yunnan street dancers, but when it comes to dancing, I'm still very much a follower. I waited for Yau Neih to get up and join him. She did on the second number. Afterwards, she explained that she didn't know the dance he was doing for the first number, so she refrained from joining him and looking foolish. Now me, I think I'm closer to getting over that hump. If I waited until I knew the dance, I'd never get off my duff. In fact, I'd like to get a T-shirt that says, "I'm a horrible dancer and I'm up here--what's your excuse?" Anyway, dancing was fun though I was a klutz. A few months back I was grumbling to myself about the Chinese (or Wa or whatever minority group they come from) dances. They have an annoying habit of going forward some steps and then stopping or backing up. I thought it was an odd Asian thing, but the Balkan dances were doing the same darn thing! What's the matter with going forward? We never had pauses in the square dance classes we had back in school. Ah, well, it was fun just the same. In fact, I even stayed in the line when Yau Neih sat out a couple.
After the set we said thank you to the band (well, lead singer Eva Moon anyway) and grabbed some lunch. The set was from noon until 1:30 so we were all hungry. I actually had a hankering for some fried rice, but it seemed that the Germans had cornered the food court. There were two sausage tents, with no rice or noodles in sight. (Guess the booths weren't the only thing that was all white.) But being a flexible and adaptable kind of guy I managed to enjoy a hot dog and curly fries just the same. (Though we still haven't adapted to U.S. portions. We bought two orders of fries for three people, stuffed ourselves, and still brought home some leftovers.) We gobbled down most of our meal and then went over to watch a street performance by our favorite band, Quichua Mashis*. About three o'clock we headed home, bloated and poorer. All in all, the day was like a mini-Folklife or Puyallup Fair.
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* Joke lifted from our favorite band, The Toucans
posted by John @ 10:18 AM
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