The Wandering Monkey

So today I met with my student to talk over how we can put together the class schedule.  As it stood, we were teaching three different styles of swing dance: East Coast Swing (a six-count dance, sometimes called Jitterbug, similar and the ancestor of Rock N Roll dancing), Charleston (a version of the 1920's dance which is the precursor to Lindy Hop), and Lindy Hop.

 

Among the hardcore people, Lindy Hop is the most commonly used.  I originally began with East Coast Swing because that's the style I originally learned.  Then, after people have that we segue them into Charleston, and if they're still OK, we go into Lindy Hop, which is a more complicated, eight-count / ten-step dance.

 

The theory was, Lindy Hop is too difficult for most beginners to learn.  It was thought that we start them on something simple then move them forward.  However, this caused a couple of problems.  First, it was downright confusing for folks who had spent two months already in dance to switch to a brand new style.  Plus, we had two levels of East Coast and two levels of Lindy Hop.  It became difficult to schedule everything, because we have at the moment only four class times per week in reserved locations.

 

So, we are dropping East Coast.  Everyone will now learn Lindy Hop from the beginning.  (This is how our counterparts in Beijing have been doing it all the time).  Now in Shanghai, we have two Lindy Hop Level I (basic) classes per week and two Level II (intermediate).  A beginner can attend both the Wednesday and Sunday classes at the same time, allowing up to two practice sessions per week.  This is also good, because people were saying they found it difficult to make any progress when the just learned one hour of dance per week. 

 

In order to make these changes, we have had to redesign our Performance and Level III classes.  My assistant came up with a surprisingly helpful idea: make one Performance group just for Level II people.  Let people who have had enough basic understanding of the dance join a simple performance.

 

So we will have one medium-skill performance which most anyone can join after about two months.  And an advanced performance for our hardcore people.  Since there are only four people qualfied and able to learn level III performances, this will work out well (I hope!)

 

This month we'll implement the new system and hope for the best.  The student helping me organize is also willing to help me round up new students and spread the word.  The nice thing about this deal is that I no longer feel I'm working completely alone.  At least a few of the people are contributing in a much more than verbal way.

 

It's always too easy to find a person who will give 'advice'.  Most of this is just theoretical ideas, such as "Why don't we recruit more people?"  When you ask them how, or ask them if they are willing to do the work to get it accomplished, these folks tend to say "Uh, I'm kind of busy..."  So it's nice to see someone who is going to pitch in.

 

What else is new?  On the personal front, I'm learning the language.  Slowly but slowly.  If I practice one hour per day I'd be much better off.  Practicing language alone is dry work.  But got to do it.

 

Right now I'm planning for a big party in late September or late October.  The first week of October is off-limits, because there is a Chinese national holiday during this week.  Everyone gets one week off from work.  I mean Everyone.  People take advantage of this time to travel back home (so the train station people don't get the week off, but you get the idea.)  There's no point in trying to get anything done during this week.  Almost all businesses are closed.  Even Westerners tend to take this time off, since most of their business counter-parts are away anyhow.

 

There's two holidays like this.  The other is Spring Festival, coinciding with Chinese New Year.  I think the origin of these holidays coincides with harvest and planting seasons back during the agricultural times.  For both of these week-long holidays, most employers require their workers to be present on the weekends before and after.  So no one is free to attend a party during that time.

 

So for this party in the fall, we need to have the two performances ready.  This is two months from now, which means we must begin training immediately.  Everyone who is in Level II will actually be learning those moves which will be used in the performance.  Then, after the month we'll invite some of them to join the 'official' performance class, which will teach the routine and principles of dancing as a group for an audience.

 

yada yada yada.

 

My sister's kid, my niece, is five months old.  I get pictures of her occasionally.  My sister & husband and their daughter are living in Germany.  In this regard, I don't feel like I'm missing out by not being back in the States, since they wouldn't be around anyhow.

 

Most Americans living here in Shanghai have a similar feeling about returning to the US.  The question is, Why?  For most people, the largest dilema is separation from their family, and this is of course an issue.  But the changes which have been happening in the US since the Bush II years have left everyone here feeling very unexcited about going back.  First, the economy is still flat.  Second, with the losses in personal freedom and increasing amount of control and supervision from the government, one finds it hard to feel enthusiastic.  Every day there's more news about military, oil, and such things.  Plus more conservative goverment people appointed in judicial and executive positions.  It just doesn't feel like it used to.  Ironically, there seems to be more financial opportunity and freedom of action and choice in China than there is back in the Land of the Free.

 

There's a computer game, Civilization, which deals with growing an empire and building it up.  You begin in the stone age with one small village and a club-wielding army troops.  Then, things progress through the ages, to Roman-type times, the Renessance (sp?), Industrial Revolution, to modern and the space age.

 

During this game you change the Government type of your cilization to pick the most effective.  You start as an absolute ruler, then can eventually select Monarchy, then Repulic (like Rome), then Democracy (like the US, originally).  The further you go along the line, the better the economy improves  -- BUT it becomes progressively harder to wage war.  In Repulic and especially Democracy, people begin to get upset when troops are moved abroad.  (Imagine, for example, the 1970s and the reaction to Vietnam). 

 

So, in this game, when you decide it's time to squash an opponent, sometimes you will down-grade your government type from Democracy to something simpler, allowing more control over the populace, at expense of the economy.  Then you are free to move your units about without risking loss of control over your goverment. 

 

'Nuff said.