How China deals with Obesity

One thing that I really like about the world is that everyone is different. I really like that. I like that ice cream comes in different flavors. I like that there are all kinds of trucks and cars to select from. I like that there are all kinds of girls, some small and tiny, and some big and voluptuous. I really like that.

This post is a tale of two different ways of solving a problem. The problem is obesity. With high-fat foods commonly available everywhere, there is a strong propensity to everyone to get fat and put on weight. What is a nation going to do about this? Allow their citizens to get fat, and die early?

In America, you make laws to control behavior. So the American solution to obesity is to ban things. Ban super-sized drinks. Ban high-calorie meals in schools. Ban pork in prisons. America is all about control. You tell the people what to do. You make laws to enforce your wishes, and you use the police to assure compliance.

In China, to provide solutions. If everyone is eating high-calorie foods, then you provide them outlets to burn those calories off. What China did, was provide public dance forums. Now, these forums have already existed in one form or the other for years now. What Beijing did was standardize them.

Let’s talk about this…

Introduction

Over  the last few decades, groups of grandmothers would gather in the open plazas and open areas and dance. They would pull out a “boom-box” and play music that they would dance to. This was all impromptu, and often you would have competing groups of dancers in the same square with a cacophonous sound that rattles doors, windows and teeth.

For years, these grandmothers would come out and dance. They would do it in the morning and in the evening. In fact, I even have a POST on how rude they often were. For some of them would push out rock-concert speakers and aim it at my house. Ugh!

“The line dancing craze has swept the nation over the past decade, with informal groups of primarily female retirees gathering at dusk and dawn to dance on any spare piece of pavement. Chinese media has estimated that up to 100 million people take part in the activities — known as “square dances,” for the public squares and plazas where many gatherings take place.

The loosely associated groups often have a leader who hauls out a boombox blaring pop hits and folk classics. The women work through a handful of dance routines, with grizzled veterans usually taking up positions at the front and beginners tentatively following along in the back rows.”

- Matt Sheehan

In 2016, Beijing put their collective foot down and established community guidelines that defined noise levels, music to play, and dances to do.

This was welcomed by the dancing grandmothers as a good thing. After a few months of fits and starts, the program was implemented throughout China.

Only…

Now it was a little different.

Organization

Now, you have a set selection of music to dance to. No longer is the music only fifty year old pop songs. The music is contemporary and upbeat. No longer do random grannies define the dance steps, but they follow defined dance routines set by trained physical therapists and trained professional dancers, designed for most people to exercise to.

Now you have paid organizers who are trained and authorized to lead the dances. Now, you have music that you can dance to, with defined dance steps. Now you have start and end times, and music noise levels that must be adhered to.

But…

But… something happened.

Everyone Started to Dance

What began as a venue for grannies to exercise, soon became a venue where everyone can participate. There are contemporaneous pop songs that are played along traditional favorites. New songs are always added to the mix, and unpopular songs are dropped. The dances are all led by trained instructors (for the most part) and everyone can now participate…

Dance Instructor getting the crew dancing…

Something else started to happen as well. As soon as the instructors started to dance, they would bring their classes (for most of them owned dance schools) and their entire class would dance in public as well…

This action attracted many other things. Suddenly you now have high-school and college aged girls wanting to dance in the venues. After all, these dance venues are in the centers of all the civics areas. Some girls would be walking by the mall, and there is this big group of dancers, and they would put their gear down, and join them. It was all impromptu.

And, it’s not just pretty girls.

You have people of all ages and walks of life… And, yes also people who need to lose a few pounds or two. Now they find it easier to dance along with everyone else, and lose some pounds in the process. It’s a win-win. Beijing figured that if you provide people with options, fun options, they would take advantage of them. In this case, they were right.

Here’s a guy burning off some weight.

What this has done was merged pop culture and pop music with the Chinese dancing forum.  It has created it’s own popular venue on it’s own merits. As a result, you can often see and meet attractive Chinese girls dancing and singing along in the public squares together.

Here’s a group of girls. I particularly like these girls. I watch them hypnotically mesmerized by their moves and jiggling bodies.

The dance steps are often simple, but the dancer can add their own flourishes to them. We have dancers that dance as couples and others that prefer the line-dance routines. Here is a group that does a nice spin-and-stomp move…

The dances are organized twice daily. In the morning it is generally from 7am to around 9am. In the evening, it usually starts around 6pm and often lasts to 10pm. If you ever go to a mall, or shopping center you will see these people dancing up a storm. It’s all free.

Typically, you find a space in the back and try your best to follow. Eventually, over time you will get it, and there will be many who will offer to help teach you the steps. This is a great way for a shy boy to meet some attractive girls. Let me tell you what…

In China, many stores and restaurants have their staff line up for a daily briefing, and company dance. It seems strange, but it is true. However, what if your company was right next to one of these plazas? After all, they are always at major shopping and city centers. What about having your staff do a morning dance before work? Wouldn’t that be nice?

And, that is exactly what happened…

They probably all work in front of the beef noodle restaurant that they are dancing in front of. Of course, the company would provide them with an exercise uniform, though the shoes would be their responsibility.

By providing this venue, the Chinese have taken advantage of it and are enjoying every moment of it. The result is that there are no laws to enforce. No behaviors that need to be policed. The people are having fun, and they are exercising and losing weight int he process. It seems to work quite well. Don’t you think?

Here are some girls dancing as a couple. It’s all a sort of free-style within a dance routine.

Here’s some “free style” improvisation. The girls shake their tushes, and the boys do their thrusts. Check it out. In China you can be yourself.

Watch the boy first, you will see him do a thrust, then move your eyes to the girls next to him. They will do a shake of their cute behinds. Ah, you’ve got to love it.

Obviously there are numerous songs that are played with numerous dance routines. I played this same singular song to make a point; all the videos are taken all over China. They were taken on different days, with different people, at different times. Some were at night. Some were in the morning.

The music is the same.

American media reports… or NOT

What amazes me is just how friggin’ out of touch the American media is about all of this. They haven’t a clue about any of this. You would figure that if their job was to report on the news, that something like this would be reported on. Nope.

Instead they are “reporting” on other things. They are not reporting on events. They are providing their opinions of things. They package the opinions of others, and what people think, on what they heard, from others who lie all for a concocted narrative who’s objective is to keep Americans living in fear. Ugh.

With that being said, here is a final micro-video of some dancers. Here they are dancing in a kind of moving forward and sideways motion that looks like a lot of fun. It really does look like fun.

I used to do some country & western line dancing (when I lived in Mississippi) that I had a ball with. This is the same kind of thing.

If you look closely, you can see the young man in the back who is trying to learn from the girls by copying their moves. Good going, son. You will eventually get it. Just concentrate on the foot work like you are doing. It’s all just a matter of time.

Conclusion

The world has an obesity problem. With the advent of fast food, the world has been getting fatter, heavier and unhealthy. This is most prevalent in West with American and Europeans leading the pack. In fact, it is such a problem, that America has written many laws to control the behavior of Americans…

• Laws on what you can eat.
• Laws on the sizes of food portions.
• Taxes on food to discourage eating.
• Limitations on the types of food that you can eat.
• Restrictions on portion sizes in schools.

In order to enforce these laws, more laws were written, and additional police were hired to enforce these laws.

Meanwhile, in China, they took a different approach. While in American, laws are written to enforce behavior, in China laws are designed to prevent victims. They couldn’t write a law forcing all Chinese to act in certain ways. Their government is not set up like that. All that they could do is provide healthy alternatives to an existing Chinese lifestyle.

So what they did is make it possible for everyone to exercise. They tied pop-music and pop-dance to public square. Now, everyone can dance. You don’t have to. It’s not a law, but it is available to you if you want to take advantage of it.

I think that this is a superior solution to enforcing behavior from a central all-knowing, all-powerful American government.

Take Aways

• Obesity is a world-wide problem.
• Different nations have different approaches.
• In America, behavior is enforced through laws.
• In China, solutions are provided to the citizenry.
• China has provided an avenue for easy access to fun exercise.
• America writes laws and enforces compliance with armed police.

FAQ

Q: Low long has this dancing venue been established?
A: The grandmothers have been dancing for decades. In the last five years they have gotten unruly and out of hand. In an effort to regain control, the dance venue was standardized and now provides opportunities for people of all ages to dance. The dances are established with health in mind. The new format was implemented sometime in 2016.

Q: Why doesn’t America provide access to dance, instead of making laws?
A: Power. Those elected and in the American government do not want to lose control of any of their power. They want to dictate behavior. They do not want solutions. They want power.

Q: What if you don’t want to dance?
A: Then you don’t dance. It is not the duty of the Chinese government to force you to do things or to adopt new behaviors. It is their role to provide solutions. It is up to you, as a citizen, to take advantage of the opportunities or not. In China, citizens are free to live life on their terms. In America, you must obey the law and fit into the prescribed behaviors established by the government.

Q: What if I don’t know how to dance?
A: No body know how to dance to the songs. They need to be instructed by the leader. Some learn fast, and some learn slow. If you watch the videos you will see old grandmothers shaking to the music even though they are not as lively as the other dancers. You just need to get up and TRY.

Links about China

Here are some links about my observations on China. I think that you, the reader, might find them to be of interest. Please kindly enjoy.

China and America Comparisons

As an American, I cannot help but compare what my life was in the United States with what it is like living in China. Here we discuss that.

The Chinese Business KTV Experience

This is the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal press. This is the reality. Read or not.

Learning About China

Who doesn’t like to look at pretty girls? Ugly girls? Here we discuss what China is like by looking at videos of pretty girls doing things in China.

Contemporaneous Chinese Music

This is a series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and enjoyment.

Parks in China

The parks in China are very unique. They are enormous and tend to be very mountainous. Here we take a look at this most interesting of subjects.

Really Strange China

Here are some posts that discuss a number of things about China that might seem odd, or strange to Westerners. Some of the things are everyday events, while others are just representative of the differences in culture.

What is China like?

The purpose of this post is to illustrate that the rest of the world, outside of America, has moved on with their lives. That while they might not be as great as America is, they are doing just fine thank you.

And while America has been squandering it’s money, decimating it’s resources, and just being cavalier with it’s military, the rest of the world has done the opposite. They have husbanded their day to day fortunes, and you can see this in their day-to-day lives.

Summer in Asia

Let’s take a moment to explore Asia. That includes China, but also includes such places as Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and others…

Some Fun Videos

Here’s a collection of some fun videos taken all over Asia. While there are many videos taken in China, we also have some taken in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea and Japan as well. It’s all in fun.

Articles & Links

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