The Wandering Monkey

Nanchang
Today  I am in the middle of my trip to Nanchang.  This is a relatively small city of 4 million, about one hour's flight from Shanghai.  I am here with an American dancer, Amanda, who had obtained a university grant to travel China teaching swing dancing for five weeks.  (Yes, that is pretty amazing in its own right.)
Nanchang is very different from Shanghai.  It is still in the "less Westernized" category.  There are only about 100 expats here as far as I can estimate, so they all pretty much know or recognize each other.  Here's an account of the journey so far:
Thursday, flight it. We arrive at Nanchang airport and take a cab into town.  You can see a blue sky and green trees and mountains, which is much different than Shanghai.  (Shanghai is a lot like L.A. in that there is no green except for parks and the lights and air pollution make the sky and stars difficult to see.)  We arrive at the hotel and check into two very small rooms, but they are adequate. I am exhausted,   and I take a nap.  A few hours  later  I go down to the lobby to meet with Amanda and Johanna, the local organizer of our experience.
Johanna is an older woman, perhaps in her sixties or maybe even seventies.  She is always smoking a cigarette, and her curly hair is unkempt and died  very light blonde. We greet her and David, a local bar owner.
Right away it is apparent she's a real character.  "Why do you want to do that, David?" she asks with a tinged German accent. "You are so stupeed!"   From anyone else this would seem bad, but somehow it is endearing coming from her.
"Oh don't worry about what I say to David," she tells us. "He eez used to me calling him stupeed."
We go about town and grab dinner at a local restaurant, and then we are off to the first venue at which we will be dancing.  It is called the Denver Bar, set  up apparently by an expat living out here.  It is a pure country western bar, complete in amazing detail.  There is a deer head on the walls, fake guns and ammo boxes, murals of cowboys, wagon wheels and the whole lot.  Such a contrast from the most of Nanchang, which is simply six-story buildings one after the other.
Amanda is thrilled by the whole thing. She met Johanna over the internet, from a post which was originally sent to the Shanghai Swings yahoo group.  None of us have ever seen each other in person before this moment, and Johanna has never even seen us dance or even seen swing dancing at all before. 
"You would not believf what it can take to set up something in this town,"  Johanna tells us while we are waiting to dance.  "I went to this bar owner and told him we wanted to bring in some dancers from California, and he told me, 'how much are you going to pay me?'  I said, 'What? Are you stupeed!?  I am bringing you business and you want to know what I will pay you?!?!"
People begin to show up.  Many of these are Johanna's English students, from 10-16 years of age.  They come with their families, some of them, and others are apparently entrusted to Johanna's care as if she were a Girl Scout Den Mother.
The time comes for us to dance, and we put the music on.  Johanna introduces us herself in English, then gets her assistant to do the Mandarin translation.  Amanda and I take the stage and begin our dancing, which is wholly improvised.  Immediately the crowd reacts by saying 'wow' and blowing on the whistles and 'toot-toot' plastic hammers that have been distributed throughout the crowd.  We do some technically difficult moves and alternate between Lindy Hop, East Coast Swing, and Charleston.  The crowd loves a few very simple but showy moves, like ski slope.  They go nuts when I lead Amanda into an assisted jump-kick.  The song ends and, as it is said, the crowd goes wild.
Now that we have their attention, we launch into a basic East Coast lesson, sometimes having to drag our 'volunteers' onto the dance floor.  We give the basics and I use as much Mandarin as I can, relying also heavily on body language and exaggerated movements to get our points across.  Soon enough, the Chinese are swing dancing  and seem really to be enjoying it.
We take a break and Johanna is thrilled. "You arr doing a wonderful job!" she says.  Just the kind of encouragement we need!  It  can be a pressure situation -- we just got off the plane a few hours ago!
We go on  and dance a few more numbers, then later we are more comfortable and try practicing a few more advanced moves together, and the crowd again really likes it.
After a few hours, we head out to another bar and do another performance at David's  bar.  Amanda and I are running on adrenaline,  and we get that place going well, too.  Finally,the night expires and Amanda goes off to the hotel to sleep.  I am new  in a new town,and I go out for a beer because I always need to explore my surroundings. And now I meet an entirely different experience.
I run into some expats, Canadians who are teaching English.  One guy is a reserved, slightly hippie looking guy and the other is a shorter, more agressive guy.  It turns out the second guy just got married today.  We go out to a bar where they are drinking and celebrating.  This place is a lot more rough-and-tumble than Shanghai.  The Chinese men are more agressive and forward.  I have a beer and sit and talk for a while, then suddenly the music stops.  The new groom says 'excuse  me' and heads out to the other side of the bar with an agressive stride.  Remembering my experience at the fight at the English school, I decide to just stay put and not get involved.  People are mulling about at the other side of the bar for quite some time and there is much commotion.  I mind my own business, and the new groom returns 20 minutes later.
It seems the police entered because the music was too loud, and they actually took the turntable with them.  The new groom is very upset - and drunk - and he tells me about what it's like out here.
"This place is still old China.  It is full of corruption. The police will go into any spot and just  take whatever they want.  It's still feudal warlords out here."  The other expats nod in agreement.
"Are you guys going to stay here?" I ask.
"Oh yeah," they all say without having to consider it.  The expats apparently have a better influence than most people because no one wants to upset an embassy.
I eventually am pretty tired and head out.  Outside I see a Chinese man open the door of a cab and try to forcibly drag the cab driver out.  He resists, then some friends of the pedestrian restrain him and separate them, and the cab moves off.  I sort of shake my head and return to the hotel to call it a day.
The next morning Johanna wants to meet with Amanda and I to tour the town.  She brings five of her English student girls with her, and we get on a bus and try to head to a bird sanctuary on the outside of town.  By  the time we arrive, it is very hot and we decide to skip it.  I'm super hungry, and so are the girls so we go back to where we started from.  Johanna does not like Chinese food, so we go to a fast food fried chicken place and lunch there.  They we go home.  Odd morning -- two hours on the bus then fast food.
That night some people Amanda has met have invited us to a hommade dinner.  Amanda is sucking up the local culture, and we   go to these women's apartment where they make us a Chinese dinner.  Then, off to the Friday night show.
It's a big hit again, and this time I see the taller hippy-ish Canadian expat at the bar.  By the time we get to the second bar that night, both Amanda and I are exhausted.  The heat   in Nanchang is very significant and drains your energy.  We give three  dances which are mildly received, then call it a night.  We stay on a while, and David plays the guitar and I get behind the congos and we play a few songs together.  He brings out a bottle of whiskey and we have some drinks, and for the first time both Amanda and I really feel relaxed.  I close out the bar  with David and go  back to the hotel.
Today is day 3, Saturday.  I have slept a lot during the last two days because I was exhausted when I began this trip.  Plus, doing shows is always very stressful.  Almost every show I do I get uptight and have mini-panic attacks worrying about the details getting done right.  But I have had a good night sleep, and for some reason I wake at 7am.
I  go  out early and get breakfast because Amanda will likely still be sleeping.  There is a park right next to our hotel, and I look inside to see what's up.  The parks in China are like community centers.  People are up an dancing ballroom  at 8am,   and I go nearby and just watch them.  One guy's steps are very clear and easy to watch, so I observe him, trying to learn it.  After the song, I approach him.
"Ni de tiaowu hen hao" Your dancing very good
"Xie xie.  Wo shi wudao laoshi" Thank you.  I am a dancing teacher.
"Zhende ma?  Ni jiao wo!"  Really!  You teach me!
He agrees, and sets me up in the ballroom pose.  He shows me the steps, and people around begin to gather and watch. After a while, he sets me up with a dancing partner and we muddle through the steps for a song.
When it is over, I tell him:
"Wo shi Mei Guo de tiaowu laoshi" I am an American dance teacher
"Shen me tiao wu?" what dance?
"Yaobai wu.  Mei Guo de." Swing dance.  American.
He wants  to see it, so I take the same partner and show her the steps.
"Jittabug!" they yell.
"Yes, Jitterbug!" they know it already!
He plays some music and I lead the woman through it.
Then, I call Amanda.  "I am being watched by about 100 Chinese   in the park across from our hotel.  Can you come over and dance with me?"
She's over in a flash, then we do a dance together.  This is the real shit.  This is why Amanda came to China, and  me, too, I suppose.
We finish the demo and ask if they want to learn.  No one, absolutely no one speaks English, so I am on my own.  I manage to address the crowd, tell them who I am, and ask if they want to learn.
"Da jia hao.  Wo jiao Jin Bou.  Wo shi Mei Guo de tiaowu laoshi."  Everyone hello.  My name is Jimbo. I am an American dance teacher.
"Ta shi Amanda.  Wo men zai Jalifonia"  She is Amanda.  We come from California.
"Nimen yao shui xi tiao wu ma?" You all want learn dance?
The crown is happy   but does not    clearly answer.
"Hao bu hao?" I ask.  (Good not good)
A few people say Hao.
"Hao bu hao!?"  I ask louder, really just trying to rile them up.
"Hao!!!"
We go on an launch the basic East Coast lesson.  We  put the women on one side and the men on the other.  Show them the basic stuff. 
"Wow, they learn FAST!" I say to Amanda.
"They're DANCERS!" she says to me with a big smile.
We go on with the lesson,and I am surprisingly able to communicate the specifics instruction.
"Holy shit, I'm teachin' in Chinese!" I say to Amanda.  It was like a scene out of a movie.
We go on for some time.  Dance a few more songs.  Then some of the local dancers take the center stage and  show us their Samba, Tango, and other styles.  They really know a lot about dancing.
We take pictures and hang out probably for an hour.  Then we take our leave.
"You come back tomorrow!" a woman says in Chinese.  "Here, 9am!!"
Ugh.  "10am" I say.
"9am!"
We go.  We then go off to get a foot massage.  20 quai  ($us   2.50)  each for one hour.
 
So we will dance tonight and return there tomorrow morning for our last day here in  Nanchang.
Peace,
-J