Every Sunday at 2 p.m, the narrow building in Manhattan’s Chinatown echoes to beating footsteps and 1950s Chinese oldies. In the large, mirrored dance studio on the second floor, Irene Ng knows how to get a party started. Turning on the dazzling neon lights, she holds her arms as if she is embracing an invisible partner. Her speedy feet kiss the dance floor; a black scarf floats behind her. Guests, used to Ng’s constant movement, follow her around. Before they realize it, they are on the dance floor.
In the run-up to the Chinese Lunar New Year—this year’s holiday falls on Feb. 1—elderly Chinese immigrants clogged the studio’s tiny door to practice ballroom dancing for the studio’s planned Lunar New Year showcase party. On a recent Saturday, more than 80 seniors crammed the dance floor, twirling—and sometimes wobbling—in pairs. Except for their masks, the room resembled a nostalgic Wong Kar-wai film.
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“I always tell seniors, don’t worry about your steps, just have fun,” says Ng, 57, owner of the Imperial Ballroom Dance Studio. As one of the longest-running ballroom dancing studios in Chinatown—it opened in 1995—the family-run business offers the 50,012 Chinese immigrants in Chinatown a space for socialization and a sense of home.
The holiday is not the only reason this institution has proved vital in recent years. Amid a pandemic that has coincided with rising rates of anti-Asian hate crimes in the U.S., social isolation has proved a deep problem for many elderly Chinese immigrants, particularly those with limited English proficiency. The stakes are high. Social isolation and loneliness may contribute to severe health risks, according to a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; risks include depression, dementia and premature death. Meanwhile, Chinatown’s population is aging quickly, its median age rising from 40 in 2010 to almost 50 in 2019, according to the Asian American Federation Census…
Source : time
