Need to give square dancing a human face

Women holding toy guns dance to a revolutionary song during their exercise at a square outside a shopping mall in Beijing, June 29, 2014.[Photo/CFP]

Chinese people's attitude toward public square dancing is quite complicated. Senior citizens, especially aged women, find a new lease of life by being part of modern dancing groups, while many young and middle-aged people don't support their dancing in neighborhoods because of the din it creates.

No wonder, the public has responded differently to the recent news of four government departments, including the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, jointly issuing a statement encouraging dancing in public areas. Some people have even said that the Dama (literally, big mamas) have finally got government endorsement to practice group dancing in public areas, while others are worried that the joint statement could cause more frictions over the use of limited urban public spaces.

Controversies over public square dancing, in fact, reflect a generation gap and conflict of individual interests. For many senior citizens who grew up in the times of collectivism and enjoy public square dancing, the activity helps them to not only maintain an active life, but also recall their "good old days" when they were young and played and worked together. The members of the younger generations, many of whom are overtly stressed, can hardly understand the joys that orderly public square dancing brings to the elderly.

Moreover, modernization, urbanization and public sphere, and individual rights consciousness are new concepts in Chinese society that are less than a century old. Frictions and disputes in daily social interactions are understandable, because Chinese people need time to get used to new rules of life and the boundary between private and public life, as well as their rights and obligations in modern society.

To properly deal with this issue, the government has to make special efforts in two areas; it has to effectively coordinate between conflicting social groups, and provide sufficient public facilities and services to do so.