living, thinking and writing
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| PRACTICE living, thinking and writing |
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Sunday, December 29, 2002 ¡®Hang-out¡¯ at the days when we were young It¡¯s fun to have Zhanghong at our place for the winter: we have some very interesting conversations on dinner table everyday. Today¡¯s topic is really branded with the time-ball or so-called social dancing on campus. When we (Bin, Hong and I) were young (at college), there were not many bars around and the movie theaters only played very boring and stiff domestic movies. In my memory, there were three places very prevalent for ¡°hang-out¡±: ballroom, English corner and video room. I guess people at my generation all know what I¡¯m talking about. When I recall all these places, the warm darkness and the exciting dimness hang over me once again. Ballroom dancing is the most popular kind, which I will talk about a little later. English corner is a corner, usually in open field, where people gathered to speak English. At my college, which is located in a picturesque southern coastal city, English corner is held here all seasons on Tuesday and Friday evenings after 9:30. Conversations are, in most of cases, carried between opposite sexes. And you saw they paired up and left together. I don¡¯t have authority on talking this dating form since I do not know in person any couple that initiates their relationship in this way. But I think this is a good excuse to invite a hardworking student for a date: ¡°how about we practicing English tonight?¡± And after the practicing you can go further naturally ¡°Can I buy you a soda before I walk you to dorm?¡± or ¡°Your English is very good, can we study together sometime so I can learn from you?¡± Something like that and it works. At our time, college students go to video rooms instead of movie theaters. Young people are curious to western culture and eager to embrace it through any of limited channels, among which the video room is the major one. I could not imagine how much wealth those video room owners generated from young students in the early 1990¡¯s of China. The shabbiness of the facility, the roughness of the pirated copy of movies and the unpleasant smell of the screening room could not curb young and poor students¡¯ enthusiasm for peeking the exotic Hollywood or Hong Kong products at a very low cost. You saw a lot of young pretty girls dressed up and walked into those narrow and inconspicuous doors, you felt no kinky about it at that time. The other advantage of going to these places was that you could take a walk on the beach after movie since most of video rooms neighboring my school overlooked the ocean. This kind of invitation works on me, I would even take initiative in this way if I tried to woo a cute boy. And then is dancing ball. Social dancing is the only good cause for physical touching in our time. To call it social dancing is really disrespectful to its name. There is basically no dancing floor, any material of floor would do. Most of students are not equipped with much dancing technique, but only know ¡®two-step¡¯ style¡ªone step forward and one step backward, and that¡¯s it. Important thing is that you can hold a known or unknown girl legitimately, at melodious music, under dimming light. Bin and Hong still miss that kind of feeling even today (joking). They both studied in Shanghai and five years earlier into college than me. Hong went there mainly for blind date and Bin only danced with girls he knew-since he was too shy to invite strangers when he was young (but things changed when he grows up into graduate school, he got to know his longest-time ex-girl friend at dancing floor). It is a weekly ritual for both of them, and they are just so-so dancers until today. My story is a little different, I met my first boyfriend at an open-air ball which were called roller-skating field but I only saw people dancing there. He attracted me from other people because he knew how to dance, and he was good at nothing but dancing. In that spring of 1993, there were so many balls on campus (maybe I never noticed before), that we jumped from one to another, sometimes five nights a week. I said goodbye to my dancing King in the summer, since we¡¯ve tried all steps and styles in the spring and the boredom grew up unavoidably in both minds I guess. And after I also got bored of self introduction and weather discussion in English corner, I found video rooms are the only good place for ¡°hang-out¡±. At that time, you never got enough of Hollywood movies, and your young mind was not aware that they were intoxicating you so you could escape from the bland reality. Time flies, and your life goes by in a blink (blah blah..). Talking about something like ¡°ten years ago¡± or someone I know for ¡°20 years¡± gave me a sudden quiver. But time just goes on, with not a bit of sentiment. posted by lmeimei @10:32 PM| permanent link| | |
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