Off with the Dance

Shanghai's 20,000 dancing girls were desperate. By Oct. 1, said the Central Government's decree, their feet must be still, their dance halls locked and dark. Like shark fins, sea slugs, imported brandy, birthday parties (except for men over 60) and wedding presents, taxi-dancing was a luxury too frivolous for China's new austerity. The girls, whose average annual salary is $4,500,000 CN ($112 U.S.), fought to keep the party going.

"For us now there is only death," sighed a dainty dancer at a huge protest rally in Shanghai's New Fairy Forest ballroom last week. A delegation of ten, led by graceful, limpid-eyed Meng Yen, queen of the Metro-Goldwyn (no kin to Hollywood) dance hall, was promptly dispatched to Nanking. From headquarters at the Security and Happiness Hotel, Yen and her henchwomen bore down on the National Economic Council, the Ministries of the Interior and Social affairs, the Legislative Yuan. Functionaries sent word that they were out, so the girls left notes.

At last, at a plenary session of the Kuomintang's Central Executive Committee, the girls found listeners. "I can't speak," said lissome Meng Yen, her eyes moist with emotion. "I can only use my tears to express my feelings."

"Her story really softens one's heart," wrote one susceptible newsman as Yen's colleagues began circulating a petition to Mme. Chiang. But it was all hopeless. The deadline remained unchanged. Said Fang Chih, Kuomintang leader: "I think no patriotic man or woman wants to embrace each other under soft lights. . . . Dancing girls could be trained to acquire useful talents in reconstructing the country and wiping out bandits."

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