Square dancing getsa little less square?

This was something I never thought I would see in Taipei: The city gym was full of 300 Taiwanese and Japanese in pettycoats, ascots and heavily embroidered button-down shirts, getting ready for a long day of square dancing.

Before the Taiwanese Square Dance Convention, which took place last weekend, my exposure to square dancing had come from TV and movies, which tends to portray it as performed by rosy-cheeked young country folk with an affinity for skipping.

I spent a few minutes talking to Murphy Chang (張誠), a "caller." Just after I talked to him, he moved to a makeshift podium and put on an instrumental recording that sounded like a banjo and a didgeridoo. Over the recording, he yelled instructions to the dancers in rhythmic English with a perky down-home Southern accent and no pretense of melody.

Dancers processed these directions instantaneously and a square of eight people moved around accordingly. For the most part.

With 12,000 square dancers, Japan is set to be the last Asian bastion of the pasttime popularized in US barns. Despite an endearing zeal among Taiwan's 500 dancers, the cheeks of those who interacted with the Americans during Vietnam aren't as rosy as they used to be, and square dancing hasn't become popular among the younger generation.

"There's too much else to do," said Chang, who at 54 is one of the younger attendees. "Young people think it's too traditional."

Like a surprising number of square dancers, though, Chang looks at least 10 years younger than his actual age. Almost everyone I talked to said the same thing: "Square dancing makes me young." By the time I left I was actually starting to believe it.

Still, the only dancer I found who was young in actuality as well as in spirit was Cathy Lin (林桂帆), a 25-year-old elementary-school English teacher who had been dancing for six years.

"I can do this dance with my mother, which is the most important thing," she told me. "I don't care what my friends say."