Vertical Tango

So, there's not much tango here. What tango there is exists in Taipei, which is an hour away by high speed rail, two hours by train, and three by bus, depending on how much money you're williing to spend and whether you have anything better to do with that time. I'm don't, and I'm cheap. Besides, I kind of like transportation. Regular trains are best, because you get the best view and there's a bathroom handy and you can just sit for two hours, daydream, decompress and listen to your ipod. Unless, of course, you buy a "standing if there aren't free seats" ticket and you end up standing for two hours with your nose in some dude's armpit. (Random anecdote: A friend of mine mentioned using deodorant as a teaching tool for the elasticity of economics, in that there are some products you would continue to buy even if the price increased a great deal. Deodorant doesn't work for that example here.)

Anyway, tango. Nope, not much. Funny how something that was part of my life daily for months, and the whole of my life daily for one month, suddenly drops off the radar. I mean, the concept still elicits beeps from my radar, but they are wistful, and now resigned beeps. There are milongas on Wednesday (can't get there and back and then teach the next day), and Saturday, and sometimes somehow there seems to be too much going on in podunk Taichung or in my head for me to make it up on Saturdays. And it's hard to get a dance. I fall into the category of unknown intermediate dancer, and more than half of the people there have been dancing for at least five years, so it's been tough. I always enjoy myself when I do go, but psych myself out in between bouts. And also... tango has always filled a perceived void. My friend B. (Yes, that's you, B.) said that everyone who dances tango has emotional problems, and I agree. But for me, that void is a) shrinking and / or b) filled by other things, so I am not so desperate for a dance any more. I love tango too much to know whether that's a good thing. In the end, I've been going up a couple times a month, and I am determined to whore myself out to Argentina again next summer.

And I've been dancing salsa. Just a couple times so far, but most recently I've signed up for an 8 week course. I am not particularly enamoured of salsa... it is fun, but it is not tango. But the class is easy contact with friendly locals, and I've wondered how to make friends with non-gringos. And it's definitely good for my ego. I've taken a couple salsa classes before, so have a vague idea of what I'm doing, and what with the dance background (I am a dancer?!) and my relative pliability compared to Taiwanese, am the class pet. I even got an unsolicitied discount for the course, because I am the wondrous American creature, and they like that. And right now, I need that ego boost.