Ladies dancing the night away

**Ugh having trouble getting the video to work on here.  Yet again will work on this tomorrow, it's late and I played 3 hours of soccer today. 

I bet you thought I was uploading porn or pictures of sexy Chinese girls didn't you?  Well, I'll save that for later ;)  

Every night walking home from work I see a large group of old ladies (some a bit younger too) just outside of the newly built grocery store.  While the store is closed for the night, these ladies are just getting warmed up.  They blast the music and start dancing - yes, dancing.  I can't help but smile every time I walk by, but I don't know if I'll be joining them anytime soon.  I'll just leave the excuse that I'm tired after work and want to rest.

I really admire this about Chinese society, elder people are very present in our everyday lives.  They are there in the mornings: selling things, walking around, playing chess,  playing with little children, and at night they dance, practice martial arts or yoga, go for runs, sing, play chess, or whatever.  They are ever present, and it is a great feeling.  My heart melts every time I see this one elderly couple, must be over 70, walking down the street holding hands, and smirk when I see another couple bickering over something - they still have a lot of life left in them.

The elderly in society here often help raise the children.  This could be mostly attributed to the highly competitive society in which both parents are out trying to make money, but I think it is also due to a high respect to the elderly.  Students respect their teachers, children respect their parents, new workers respect the older workers (often calling them old big, which is a highly respectful term in Chinese).   Thus when a person gets old he / she isn't out of the picture at all, but just in it and revered more than ever before.

There is an old Chinese saying that says something like a man can stand on his own at 30, becomes successful by 40, and finally understands life at 50.  There might have been another one for 60 but I can't really remember.  The point is that the stages in life here are vastly different than they are back in the US.  40 isn't "over the hill," but rather "a flower bloomed" (real saying).  Youth is important, but wisdom and experience are more highly regarded, and those usually come with age.   What we regard as middle age is what they regard as finally standing up on your own two feet. 

The rush of the American mindset has got me constantly worried about accomplishments, career, and other things.  I'm 22 now and a college graduate - oh my.  Here this age is young and "inexperienced" and is a time to slowly gain ground rather than a rat race.  It is quite calming.

It is true though - I haven't really stood up on my own two feet yet, and I am no where near becoming a fully bloomed flower no matter how you look at it.   And and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.