Gallery: China 2004-05

Social Dancing and Tai Chi, Bund Promenade, Shanghai

If you go to the Bund Promenade before office hours, you'll come across people practicing Tai Chi or learning how to social dance. If you know how to dance and you're a man, ask to join them! They don't have enough men, so often the women will practice their steps together. A small boom box provides accompaniment.

It is said that it takes about ten years for you to become pretty good at Tai Chi. The learning curve is as excruciatingly slow as the moves. It is based on the notion of controlling one's qi (also spelled chi; it is the same as ki in Japanese) or life-energy through breathing exercises and the exercise motions.

Although this couple appears to be dancing at the feet of Chairman Mao, the dates are wrong. The statue is actually of Chen Yi (1901-1972) who was a Communist Party member as well as a military commander in the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and subsequent civil war. He became mayor of Shanghai after that and then served asthe Chinese Foreign Minister. He thought Mao's revolution was fine but held back the country's development unnecessarily. He was purged in 1967 during the Cultural Revolution and he died in 1972. This statue is on the Bund Promenade. The Chinese government has a wordy official biography here which skips over that little purging, imprisonment and subsequent death in prison bit.