Let's go to China and buy some milk

When we leave our compound, just outside the gate, 'real' China starts. Hundreds of mopeds, bicycles, small shops and workshops and an everyday life of Chinese people. It makes quite a contrast to the compound. After few walks out there now we say that we go to China to buy some milk. Instead of going to the big grocery stores for small shopping, we simply run to local supermarket, where all the products are local and what naturally follows, everything in the store is in Chinese, so we really need to know what we want to buy :)

Tonight I went with my mom for a walk and after walking inside the compound we got bored very quick, so we decided to go to China. After half an hour we were passing by a square at the quite big cinema and theater building (I guess it is a cultural center of the district, I think I also saw there a library and since it is a huge building there must be much more). I heard a music and after having a closer look I also saw that people were dancing. I had to get even closer...

It was dark at the square, no additional lights beside these from the road. The music sounded like the laud speaker was covered with loads of cotton pads and the Chinese hits were played.

There were about 10 couples on the 'dance floor', ladies dancing with each other, men dancing with women as well as women dancing solo. You have to know that it was not a joke! I wish I had my camera with me (I did my best with phone camera) to be able to capture seriousness on their faces and in every move.

I noticed that few couples were dancing similar routine, so it must have been some kind of 'folk dance'. Some of them were very gracious, some did their best to be gracious.

So, basically you could take five minute for dancing, just after you bought some milk or just on your way home from work...

What was most surprising to me was how natural it seemed to be for them to dance on the street. Specially, that I see Chinese people usually wrapped up in their politeness, rules and defined ways of acting, covering their faces when laughing, like it was something wrong to laugh. And here, out of nowhere this... Loved it :)

(pls, note that I wrote 'speaker' - one speaker... as it turned out later the speaker was placed in something that looked like a part of a bookshelf, with a door covering partly the speaker, so that you can not take it out, without a key to a big locker... The bookshelf was on wheels. It was rolled out from the square, back to the building by the lady responsible for it when the time was over).

I will have to check next Saturday, if this is a regular Saturday event in 'my' China :) Who knows, maybe one Saturday I will get to dance :)