Chinese Parks

China's different from England. Obviously. But not in the ways you'd expect. If you want to see Chinese culture first hand you just need to go to a park early in the morning. You'll be surrounded by people hitting trees, clapping their hands, shouting at random, and, as you can see here, dancing. This pair were amongst a a whole group of people, some of them dancing alone, to music blasted from someone's loudspeaker. I always want to know how this stuff gets arranged; does one person just decide to bring his amplifier and mp3 player on the off chance a group of formal dancers want to come along and have a little shuffle around?! He wouldn't be the only one. Sometimes, more often than not, you get audibly assaulted by more than one song spewing out from different dancing groups on the scene. The thing that surprised me most in Shanghai, and still continues to amaze me, is the absence of being self-conscious. If you suggested to your friends that they go to the park and have a dance they'd probably cringe at the thought. "In front of everyone? Nee chance!!" Not here, do what you want. Everyone's watching, nobody cares. Just in case I forget for a split second that I'm in China, there's always people doing Tai Chi: