The Wandering Monkey

Shanghai, Day 20
Well, I'm not keeping good track of which day # it is. I can't believe it's been three weeks already!
I'm not having trouble getting to the blog anymore. It seems I can do it from the Internet cafes now. I don't know why it works now and not before, but it does.

Today my dance partner finally showed up. Thank God we get along! And she has good connection, good East Coast Swing and Lindy and Charleston skills. We danced one test dance together and went over my music collection. It turned out she didn't have any of the same music that I had, she being from the east coast. She said that the west coast had a much better music selection when it comes to bands! I think that's true. The Bay Area is the king of swing in the U.S.

Tomorrow she and I go out to "Lindy Bomb" a club or two. This means going into a club pretty much randomly and just taking over the dance floor by doing Lindy Hop out of the blue (and hopefully clearing the dance floor). Usually it's done with a group of six or more dancers, but I think we'll just have to deal with the two of us for now! We are starting at 7pm and bringing some friends of us along to witness the carnage. This should be fun.

I'm glad I had three weeks on my own to settle in and form my own group of people before my dance partner arrived. I think if she got here at the same time that I did, I would have become an accessory in her own social world. I much prefer it this way, with me having my own set of friends. Interestingly, the Swedish girl and I have become better friends. My dance partner is very interested in meeting her, because they both have talked about the experience that a white woman goes through here.

Yesterday my Swedish friend and I were going to dinner. She got to the restaurant first and was told that there were no tables available and there would be a 30 minute wait. Mind you, she is quite young and wearing a backback at the time, so they may have thought she was a penniless backpacker or something. But surely she could have paid for a table. Anyhow, when I showed up a little later, they said "Welcome, Welcome" and let us upstairs, where there were at least 10 tables and only two of them occupied.

My dance partner says that when people see me, mature white male, their automatic assumption is "this is an important person to know" -- wealthy or influential or the like. And she also says that when they meet her, their assumption is more like "this person probably knows people who are important". Anyhow, they both want to talk to each other to compare notes.

So what else? I'm just about over my cold. Man, that sucked. Bad timing. I'm going back to my place to watch any of the 20 DVD's that are back there (good shops for that out here...).
So, g'nite all
=J