Just Gotta Dance!

On the heels of yesterday's post, i wanted to show that it's not all gloom her for women. There are more and more hobbies popping up, especially for the younger generation. A big hobby for all young people in Taiwan is dancing. Taiwanese schools and even businesses often have "celebrations" for anniversaries and for the new year holiday, where they celebrate by making the students or workers put on skits. Now people like to just do choreographed grouped dances for these celebrations.

To practice these dances students will meet up anywhere in the city that has a mirror or very reflective glass. popular places for this are the underground malls attached to some subway stations, and large parks that have buildings in them which while closed in the evening, the lights outside stay on and the glass doors are quite reflective.

At first when I saw this i was quite shocked by it. As shy as Taiwanese are, it's amazing that they are willing to do this in public. But more and more I recognize just how great this activity is. It provides most young Taiwanese with skills they desperately need and unfortunately aren't taught elsewhere. They are taught to preform in public, and to work with others. It's much needed as Taiwanese culture teaches you to be more reserved, and the Taiwanese school system preaches competition between students to be the best and not working together.

Unfortunately as they grow up, these dancing opportunities become less. But that's part of growing up in any country. However more and more gyms and other places are putting together dancing classes for adults who want to learn or continue dancing. Believe it or not, belly dancing classes were rather popular for about a two year period. Perhaps not so shocking in the west, but for Taiwan, i still am surprised by that.

Bonus points to you if you can find me in this picture.

[Photo Co-op]

Hmmm let me guess, the guy in the white shirt, brown hair in the reflection. How has your experience been, being in a situation where you are the only non-asian? Do you get stares and looks or the opposite, where no one looks at you?

[Taiwandaily]

@handmade Ha, you win. To answer your question, definitely when i got here 8 years ago i got a lot of stares and strangers coming up to me wanting to chat. As the years go by this is less and less. This has a lot to do with there being more and more foreigners arriving each year, so now we are a lot more common. It's a pleasant change to have a lot more anonymity when out and about.