Eric's Beijing Diary

Golden Week. China has three of them. The National Day holiday in October, the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) holiday, and the May Day holiday. Each of them are a week long, except that for students, the Spring Festival holiday is longer. This time I wasn't quite sure where to go, and hadn't made any plans, because I had been holding out the possibility of taking a quick trip to the States. Anyway, I was having dinner with Elisha and Dragon on Sunday evening, and Elisha invited me again to come to her home town. I was interested in Tangshan for several reasons. First of all, Tangshan was the epicenter of the 1976 earthquake. Tangshan also has a sister city relationship with Jiutian (Sataka) in Japan, one of my home towns. Finally, Tangshan is sorta the gateway to the Jingtang (Beijing de jing, Tangshan de tang) shipping port.

This afternoon we boarded the bus at Zhongguancun for the three hour ride here to Tangshan. This evening, after dinner, we walked to the square near Elisha's house where a large number of people were dancing in the special dancing square. This is something I see all over China. It is a favorite evening past time that seems to transcend the regional differences that prevail throughout this very diverse country. When we first got there this evening, they were waltzing to "Edelweiss," from the "Sound of Music," but there were several Chinese tunes, too. Classical music seems to be favored, but there is actually quite a bit of variety.