First, a little background: It’s safe to say that I’m not a dancer. In fact, I would say that I don’t dance. Ever. In regards to dancing, I have about as much grace as an African elephant. Just know this up front.
So today I went about my usual Sunday activities. I headed to church at 9:45, got lunch, took a nap, hung out in my air-conditioned hotel room (remember my recent post about the weather? I cursed it. It was so hot today I literally wilted on my way home from church) and then decided to get dinner. After dinner at the neighborhood Casbah, where I sat at the table next to this adorable family singing the alphabet “A you’re adorable” song, I decided to go for a walk rather than going back to my room. There’s this nice little stretch of park along the river that’s about a quarter mile from the hotel so I walked over there and sat on the grass reading for a while. By this time it had cooled off quite a bit and there was a nice breeze coming from the brown-colored river, so it was pretty comfortable.
After a while I got up and wandered up and down the river a little bit and then heard this loud music coming from somewhere close by. I planned to start walking home, but I stumbled upon the source of the music (a smallish amp on wheels being controlled by an older woman) and four or five people dancing in a little square. I stopped to watch because it was so cute, and within ten minutes or so there were about twenty people all lined up doing the Chinese equivalent of jazzercise. When I say people, I actually mean Shanghainese grandmas. I just couldn’t bear to leave because these women were so adorable and then I decided to join them. I know, total personality betrayal. I have no idea what came over me, it just looked like fun, and how could I say that I watched these ladies for twenty minutes and never actually tried it myself? So I just jumped in there and tried to do what they were doing, which, by the way, was WAY harder than it looked. I probably made the biggest fool of myself (no probably about it, really) but I was laughing so hard the entire time picturing how funny this scene must be. Twenty jazzercising Shanghainese grandmas and one white girl doing who knows what. The husbands of the grandmas got quite the show.
After a few songs and basically as much embarrassment as I could handle for one night, I decided it was time to head home. I started walking away only to be called back by this Chinese man who had just been dancing with this very cute little boy. (He did the really nice “Hallooo?!” thing that I think is so funny.) So, figuring I had nothing else to lose and no propriety left to save, I agreed to dance with him and ended up having a fantastic time. I did not magically become a good dancer (I might have even gotten worse) but that, reader, was a cultural experience you cannot fake or find in a guide book or buy with a souvenir.
This probably goes without saying, but as a side note, I saw the cutest babies ever tonight. There was this one little baby being held by her mom that I might have wanted to steal. These Chinese babies have won my heart.
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