The Wandering Monkey

Today was Sunday, and it was much better than the beginning of the weekend.  Last Friday was supposed to be the second week of our regular Friday dance.   I knew attendance would be low because of the Labor Holiday.  (The entire country takes a week off and goes traveling.  Businesses close early, and so forth.)  70% of my loyal students were going out of town.  I had thought to cancel the Friday dance outright, but there was no way to reach the people who'd been given flyers or may have read about it on  the Internet.  So I went to the venue just to see what would happen.

As I neared the venue, I got a really dreadful feeling about the whole thing.  Then, when I arrived, I got a bad surprise.  Nothing was set up.  No banner outside, no tables cleared off to make dance space, no one at the door to take tickets, and so forth.  Moreso, the entire regular staff was gone.  Apparently no one told them what was going on.  The present staff was apparently Holiday-week replacements. 

I was really upset.  It was 30 minutes until start time.  The dance night would have probably flopped, but now it was impossible.  So, I canceled the night with everyone I could reach and counted on everyone else staying away.  Or -- if anyone did show up -- they would figure it was due to the labor holiday.  I left the scene and didn't look back.  As it turned out, no one called asking any questions.

That night got me rather upset.  It's when I did my last entry where I was mulling over my past.  My old dance partner calls these days "Bad China Days."  There are some days you just hate everything.  Happens to everyone.  Doesn't mean anything, really. It's just some days it all goes wrong.

 

Today, however, was different.  I had a private lesson with an actress from Beijing.  She's shooting a TV show in Shanghai and they wanted her to do some swing dancing.  She also said she may need me to dance with her on the show.  We'll see.  That would be nice.

This TV show is from the 1930's era.  This seems to be part of a trend in Shanghai.   There's a lot of nostalgia and events oriented around the 1930's.  This is fantastic since swing dancing is from that time. There's also a movie being filmed out here from the the same era which has posted ads looking for Westerners who know something about dance from that era.  I'm applying for that one.

After the private lesson, I prepared for our Suday evening dance.  This one is at another location, and the regular staff was there.  Since it was still the Holiday, so I told management that possibly no one will come.  Regardless, I did all the preparations with banners and music.  Then I sat on the rooftop terrace where we do our dancing and worked on my lesson plans. 

About 1 hour later a Chinese couple came up the stairs.  They peeked their heads through the door and looked at me alone on the terrace.

"Only two people?" the man says.

"Yeah," I laughed.  "Want a private lesson?" 

And they stayed.

The couple was a little older, he perhaps late 40s, she 10 years younger.  They learned well, especially considering they didn't speak much English.  It was easier for me to communicate in Mandarin then they in English.  Can you believe that?  I guess I have learned a little bit.

They stayed for 90 minutes of teaching and a full hour of dancing afterwards.  I used the ample spare time to finish the lesson plan and phone in an appointment with a Mandarin tutor.  Finally I told the couple I was hungry and must go. They said they'd be back next week!

I walked towards home and got some food from a street vendor.  I stopped by the internet cafe and played a game about 45 minutes (acceptable).  Then I went home, wrote the lesson plans into the computer, and now I'm just sitting at the computer, being a little insomniac. 

-J