I think it says something good about a city when people dance in its streets.
One of my favourite things about the area in which we live is the open space in front of our local mall. By day it doesn’t look like much, just a paved square sandwiched between the traffic and an array of glossy storefronts, but by night it is transformed into a ballroom. Come 7pm, every night of the week, rain or shine, the music starts and couples emerge to dance the waltz or the tango or the cha-cha-cha. Husbands dance with their wives, mothers with their sons, grannies with their grandchildren. I have seen toddlers spinning between middle-aged pajama-clad couples, the young dancing with the old and the professional looking swirling carefully between the not so proficient.
My favourite dancer is the elderly gentleman whom I have privately named the Polyester Prince. So named because of his collection of colourful and matching nylon trouser/shirt combos, he would look a lot like a member of a New Jersey bowling team circa 1978 if it wasn’t for the dignity and grace with which he steers his partners over the grey bricks. No matter the dance or the partner, his posture remains ramrod straight, his head gently inclined and his gaze fixed in the distance. I am not sure what it is he is seeing but I am pretty sure it’s not the facade of a mall or the looming skyscrapers or the chaos of Shanghai traffic.