The time I won a dance competition

Firstly, I’d just like say a huge congratulations to myself for passing the 500 post mark earlier this week. Woop woop for me! To celebrate this, I have an apple and rhubarb cake in the oven.

In the meantime, I would like to tell you a story about the time I won a dance competition. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. You didn’t realise I had so many skills. You knew I was talented but this was a side of me you hadn’t seen yet. Yes, I know. Calm down, calm down. Let me tell you the story.

My friends and I were travelling around Asia. One friend had been living and working in Thailand in a town called Khon Kaen so we spent some time there on our trip. In Thailand in April, at the beginning of the monsoon season they have a big street party called Songkran. In the whole country. And they seemed to be doing it in Laos too when we were there. It lasts about three days and the basic premise of it is that everyone throws water and talc at each other.

Yep. Talc. Talcum powder. People have it all over their hands and when you’re jammed in a big crowd, they will work their way around and smother everyone’s wet faces with talc. Not sure why.

It can turn into an all out war with the water throwing. People get high tech water guns and use water that’s had ice sitting in it. They soak everything and anything. People sitting on a bus. People just trying to walk to work. Anyone’s a target.

In amongst all this, there are bits of entertainment being put on in the streets, to keep the revellers happy. There are different stages with performances or competitions etc. And one of these, on the day we were there, was a dance competition. As we approached the stage to see, the man with the microphone was asking for one more participant.

Somehow, without consciously expressing an interest, I was being pulled/pushed/carried onto the stage. And I was the final participant!

Before I had time to realise what was really happening, the music came on and I was ordered to dance. And dance I did! They were screaming and loving it. I was dancing and loving it. And there was general lovage all around. I felt like a major Hollywood celebrity!

Whilst getting down with my bad self, I decided to do a little sideways lunge type of move, to mix it up a bit, you know? With being completely drenched from Songkran, the thin fisherman’s trousers I was wearing, stuck to my skin so that when I lunged, the seam on the inside of the leg just ripped.

There I was – dance, dance, dance, then RRRRRIP! Oops! My cool sideways lunge move stopped immediately and I changed to more standing-up-straight-and-not-bending-legs-moves.

Then the music stopped and microphone man asked the crowd to shout for their favourite. He pointed at each of the other three, who had been very good dancers. Then he pointed at me and the shouting was louder. Now I’m not fooling myself that I was the better dancer. I was, however, the only foreigner up there plus I had split my pants live on stage so I think it made me look a bit exciting and that got me through.

I was handed a t-shirt which read ‘YAMAHA’ and told that it was my prize. So I took my t-shirt and my broken pants and off I went, the official Dance Competition Winner!

Compliments aplenty in China

About ten years ago, I went to China to trek the Great Wall with a group of people connected to a charity called Quarriers. It was one of those things were you get people to sponsor you and the money goes to the charity.

Apart from waking up on day three, unable to move, it went well. It was loads of fun. We zipwired over a river….

We were chased off the wall by some soldiers and had to escape through a farmer’s field and persuade the farmer not to charge us for walking through his fields without permission. There were adventures round every corner.

Often, when we started, some of the locals would walk a little way with us, trying to persuade us to give them our bags to carry, the implication being that you give them a little bit of money at the end of the day. Most of us wanted to carry our own bags, to feel we’d ‘done it ourselves’ but occasionally some would cave in and accept help.

This one day, I think it was about a week in, one of these helpers had been with us all day. She was helping a 60 year old lady called Lily and they were steaming ahead, leading the group, while we trailed behind!

At the end of the day, as we were making our way to our accommodation and the lady was getting ready to turn and repeat the day’s walking in reverse to get home, she produced some t-shirts with pictures of the Great Wall on them and asked us if we wanted to buy some. They were quite nice and not expensive so we all had a look. By the time, I looked, however, all the t-shirts my size has gone. She looked at my top half and ruffled through her remaining ones but they were all children’s sizes. Dammit.

“Never mind,” I gestured, shrugging my shoulders and starting to walk away.

“Wait!” her voice rang out, in the way someone might shout ‘Eureka!’ if they had solved some great mystery.

(Are you ready for this?)

I turned back to see what she had found. She was holding a red t-shift aloft and offering it to me.

“I have extra large!” (Actually she said, ‘extra rarge’ but you get the idea)

Now I don’t know how things go down in China but in the UK, if you want to make a girl buy some clothes off you, it’s not by telling her she looks like she needs the ‘extra rarge’ size.

Unsurprisingly, I passed on the t-shirt…..