The time when we walked into a pitch-dark, yet people'd ballroom in Taichung:
There was a musty breezeway at the end of which was a small booth, complete with smudgy plastic window with a hole cut out in which to speak through. The woman behind the glass made a hospitality service bow and a hand motion- not unlike revealing a Price Is Right grand prize- for us to go into the ballroom. I said to her kan yi kan, "just have a look." And she smiled and made the grand-eloquent hand-sweep again. We looked into the ballroom from whence upbeat jazz was emanating. It was a completely black void.
We walked only a few steps into the darkness before I could sense from clanking and chatter, and foot steps, that the place was actually full of people. I looked toward the music and my eyes adjusted to the dark. At which point I could make out the faint glints off the band's saxophone and drum set.
But there was not a light in the house except for the odd cell phones that seemed to levitate at waist-level. Michael said he saw a couple holding a cellphone up to their table as a woman was feeling around for her cocktail.
A maitre'd came up to us, I assume in order to seat us. We laughed. I said, "Mei you diandeng ma?" No lights? I think he laughed, but then again I couldn't exactly see him. I looked back in the bands direction where I could just make out the disco-ball over the dance-floor just barely and dimly reflecting what ever light there was.
I wanted to sit, to be a part of this strangeness. But Michael, for whatever reason, wanted to leave. We left through the breezeway. We were laughing. I asked astonishingly again why there were no lights, only to be met with another vacantly-pleasant hospitality bow.
Okaayee?
