Never Too Old to Dance.

We traveled out to Yuxian Province this weekend, a much more rural part of China than we have been seeing. The best part of the excursion was our stop at a senior center in the town where we stayed. Really? Yes really. First you have to understand that a lot of the people in this area have never met anyone from another country before, so it was a pretty big deal that we were coming to visit. The seniors who use this facility (its basically a day center where people can take classes and play sports and interact with other retirees) organized an afternoon of entertainment for us, including dancing, singing, and baton twirling. About twenty women in their 60s-70s performed choreographed dances, Peking opera, and one even did this amazing routine with a stick (I’ve included some visuals to help explain the scene). They tried to teach some of us how to do the dances, but I was quickly identified as a lost cause and politely lead back to my chair. The whole thing was pretty surreal, but really fun. I can only hope I’m in good enough shape in my seventies to belt out an opera song and perform choreographed dance moves.