Limbo Scarves

Hong Kong has a fabulous boardwalk. It’s not busy with shops or food stalls like a US boardwalk. It’s all about the view. Ships breeze past in the warm night as lights glint off the choppy water. Skyscraper after skyscraper shout against the night sky in brilliant color. And you can’t take it in with just one look. You have to keep turning your head because these skyscrapers don’t know where to end.

In fact, it’s kind of nice to have a slow boardwalk with wide lanes. People take lots of photographs and Aaron points out that most of them won’t turn out due to short exposure time. And really even Aaron’s fancy dancy camera can’t capture the brilliancy of Hong Kong at night.

As we strolled down the quiet boardwalk we noticed a break in the quiet on one of the blocks. There was a great crowd of people gathered around a rusty rock ‘n roll sound. Speakers were lined up against the rail and as we approached the throng of people I finally spotted a Chinese band entertaining a lively bunch of Hong Kongers. From the sound, it was obvious that rock ‘n roll didn’t originate in the Middle Kingdom. I was immediately reminded of high school days of pimply boys imitating cover songs in some parent’s garage. Even though the music was just so-so, many couples were dancing in a fox trot sort of way. Everybody was having a great time.

“Wipe out”, the famous Beach Boy’s song, began to play. I did the crocodile dance, the swim, and I didn’t forget to hold my nose and take the plunge.

Some dancers in the crowd manifested two long scarves and everyone lined up for the limbo. I couldn’t pass up the chance to be the only American in a Chinese limbo line. I danced my way through the line about a dozen times and each time I passed the band I sang along with them. They all found this very entertaining and soon enough I was pushed onto the stage and handed a microphone. I had no problem belting out the words…

“Every limbo boy and girl All around the limbo world Gonna do the limbo rock All around the limbo clock…”

We went through the whole song at least twice because everyone was really getting into it. Lots of people were taking pictures and cheering us on. They even let me do some solo parts. I was a real star in Hong Kong, even if it was only for a few minutes with a rusty rock ‘n roll band.