The Three Styles of World Salsa (that I know of), and other social commentary mixed in...

...this is a long entry, but I think it's a really interesting one (of course...I wrote it). If you really don't have the attention span, at least scroll down and watch the youtube video to get a small glimpse into my life here!

I've danced Salsa in three parts of the world - Thailand, Hong Kong, and Albany New York, and I've come to a conclusion about regional cultures (call it race or ethnicity if you really want) and styles of dancing salsa.

Now, most people already know this, but Latin Americans in general dance very naturally, and haven't taken any lessons (not I say "in general"...I'm not making essentializations or stereotyping here). They've picked it up since childhood, and tend to dance much more naturally, less for show, less ball-roomy, but more expressive, more in the moment, more intuitively. And I'm not basing this on what I've heard, but from seeing Latin Americans who came later to the club in Bangkok, or from those I saw in Albany.

The polar opposite to this is the showy, ball-roomy style, that's less improvisational, but much more flashy, and definitely requires at least some lessons in the beginning to pick up the basics of the language. Most of the world wouldn't know this, but I think cultures of East Asia are exemplary soil for producing some incredible dancers. It comes with a very structured and ordered culture that you can see expressed in all corners of Hong Kong, from the extensive underground passages and tunnels, which are protected from stale air by jet-like fans at entrances and exits; an incredibly planned out subway system that rarely requires you to go further than a leisurely stroll across the platform when you need to change lines, and an employee who goes around the library with a clipboard, marking down desk id numbers in order to strictly reinforce the rule that if your belongings are at a desk and you're not physically present there for 30 minutes then this constitutes a 'reservation' and your things will be removed.

This is the kind of structure ideal for flashy ball-room moves. Of course you always need some improv skill to make your dance organic and not mechanical. But my point is relative to the other style.

And then you have the middle of nowhere, neither-nor style exemplified by Albany Salsa...which unfortunately corroborates the stereotype that white people can't dance. White America has a culture definitely less structured than say Hong Kong's - just look at the stale greasy and rusting subways of New York or Boston, or the fact that McDonald's in Hong Kong has a button at the cash-register you can push that counts down 1 minute - if you don't have your food in that time, your meal is free (or something like that...I don't know if they still have this though). I'm not saying that this kind of thing is good...it's quite horrid for the workers actually (today at KFC I saw big black letters painted on the wall behind the counter a bit out of sight from customers but clearly staring the employee in the face: "Yes! I Will". Such an obvious sign of exploitative control; so impressive how fast they can pull things off). Anyway, this is all just a tangent to my point I was trying to make, that Albany dancers don't have the structure to dance flashy and ball-roomy, BUT they don't have the natural improvisational skills either! There dancing style is horrid in my opinion, and I only wonder and hope it isn't so that this is what the general scene looks like in America.

And the community! Is so much stronger in Bangkok and Hong Kong than it is in Albany. In Albany it's horrid! Every ten girls/women I asked to dance, nine of them said no. It seemed like most of them were kind of tribalistic, sticking with their group of friends, or their significant other the whole night and never intermingling with anybody else. In Bangkok and in Hong Kong, everyone who dances Salsa in the city knows everybody else who dances Salsa in the city. I don't have to ask girls/women to dance, they come right up to me and ask, I barely get any time to rest. I just stand around and they'll come up to me. I don't even know them! They're total strangers! Now, I'm not saying that this happens automatically. It happens only because I ask one girl to dance with me in the beginning, and others see. If a girl/woman is a member of a small salsa community in Bangkok or Thailand, she tends to be a more open person, and has less regard for gender roles. So they like what they saw, so they want the same thing and so approach me. It's a highly consumerist society here...get what you want and consume its use value.

So I leave you with a microcosm of a glance into HK salsa. This is a birthday dance. I got one in Bangkok too. See! That's how strong the community is in these cities...we all know each others birthdays! and sing the birthday song and eat cake with the birthday girl/boy too!

Most of the acquaintances from the small salsa community and Capoeira community in Bangkok had the same reactions when they saw me: "Ow! I thought you left!?"

"Ow," said with a sharp raise in tone, is a common Thai expression that doesn't quite have an English equivalent. Perhaps a mix of "huh?" or "hey!" together, you'd usually say it if someone did something that confused you, or surprised you, or both. Just picture both eyebrows raising up as one says "Ow!?"

One of my Farang friends (Farang is equivalent to the Cantonese "Gwailo," - white foreigner) said to me "I thought you'd died from a Motorcycle accident or something!" He was a friend from the salsa scene I ran into a lot, and it was our running joke that we'd always greet each other with "so you're still alive!" because we were both motorcycle drivers in the chaotic streets of Bangkok. I guess he never got a farewell from me, and not having seen me for 3 months, assumed the worst.

I ran into him at the new salsa club, Dream. Fogo Vigo has been closed to dancing! Apparently the Brazillian club did not have a "dancing license," and was thus forced to close by the police. I think what this really means is that they refused to pay a bribe demanded by the corrupt police force.

And at the school I used to teach at, I just popped in to say hello. Children can be intensely boisterous and mischeivous in one situation, but totally shy and irresponsive in another. Most of them exclaimed a "teacher Felix!" when they saw me, but got quiet and mumbly when I asked how they were doing, how they liked the new English teacher, and if such and such a student was still around. As always, the fifth-grade girls were most talkative (now sixth-grade!)

"Teacher, you come back to teach?" Amy asks.
"No, I've come back just to say hello. How do you like your new teacher?"
"Uh, good." Cream says not so enthusiastically.
"Teacher, you come back to teach!" Amy says.
"Really? You want me to come back and teach?"
"Yes!" Amy and Cream say simultaneously.
"You liked my teaching?"
"Yes!" Amy and Cream say simultaneously. I puzzle over this a moment.
"So does the new teacher ever play games with you?"
"No, teacher," Amy says to me with excited dissaproval. "Never! And so much homework!" I quickly realized that they missed me not because I was a good teacher, but in fact because I was a bad teacher. They missed me because I was an entertainer. But that's all in the past.


Strangely, walking around Bangkok, it felt as if I'd never left. But now that I've come back to the US, it's like everything in Bangkok was a dream. Memories from distant places always seem to end up that way - like dreams that one day you yourself begin to doubt whether they ever really happened.