Yumei Qing’s Dancing Life
Yumei Qing, a sophomore student, likes dancing very much. She began to learn dance from kindergarten and has learnt many kinds of dances such like folk, jazz and urban. When she was in high school, she joined two dance organizations, one was out of the school and the other was in the school. At that time, she had to study not only what they should learn at school, she also had to prepare Toefl and SAT because she was preparing to go abroad. Her mom and teachers didn’t support her to dance and thought that what she did that was out of study was a waste of time. However, she didn’t want to stop dancing. She tried to squeeze time for dancing and found that she could feel better and reduce stress while she was dancing. She said that one day in high school that was before the performance, her mom said she didn’t want her to dance anymore which made her so upset. Her mom said that she didn’t like Yumei’s friends who were out of school. It made her so sad because she thinks her mom didn’t know a lot about her friends. She talked a lot stories with me about her friends in high school. When she goes back to China, she sometimes dances and goes out with them.
If say it was a tough time for her to dance in high school, she said it’s her fortunate point to join Bounce Dance Organization in the college life. Yumei joined Bounce when she was a freshman and she loves dancing and playing together with Bounce members. They also danced on the center stage of THON this year and they’re the only Chinese organization which stands on that stage. She said that she couldn’t forget the time after joining Bounce about one thing that she felt warm of this big family. One day her roommate was ill and she wrote a message on a social platform to get help. Fiona, a member who lived off-campus said she had some medicine and could drive to school and gave the medicine to them. She said she felt unbelievable when she heard this because she thought Fiona didn’t need to do this. Fiona graduated this year and Yumei felt a little sad. She appreciated that Bounce provides her the space and opportunity to dance. She usually dances twice a week. She teaches students who don’t have much experience on dancing Wednesdays. She said that she feels good when the whole members love the same thing and they try to achieve the same goal. The most important is she has many friends in Bounce and she said that most of her friends in college are from Bounce. In the future, she wants to keep going and improve herself.
To interview her, I went to her home. All of her roommates and some of their neighbors are Bounce members. They get along with each other in the normal life and help each other in different kinds of situations. When I went to get some videos when they were practicing and performing, I can also feel the warmth. I also go with Yumei and one of her friends when they practice and go to bubble-tea shop. They talked about their friends in Bounce all the time and write some wishes to their future on a small paper which was sticked on the wall in that shop. Yumei really enjoy being a member in Bounce.
