Nov 052010
The Kliptown Youth Program gumboot dancers gave Shanghai commuters an impromptu performance of Shosholoza on Wednesday night, while travelling to the airport and, from there, home to South Africa. Shosholoza is a popular South African folk song, but actually originated among the Ndebele people of Zimababwe, who used to sing on quite different trains, while travelling home from Johannesburg’s mines, where they were employed as migrant labourers. For more on the song, read the Wikipedia entry.
Thanks to @toppingupCT for suggesting the video.
Iain Manley
Iain studied journalism at the University of Cape Town, where communists were skinny professors who wore tweed. He arrived in China in 2007, at the end of an overland journey from London, documented at his overland travelogue. His first book, about the pirates, prostitutes and opium peddlers of old Singapore, was published last year, just before he left China, to travel back to South Africa, overland.
To get in touch, follow him on Twitter at @iainmanley
or send an email to manleyiain@gmail.com.
Wonderful!
Awesome footage…quite the collision of cultures. I particularly like the deer in headlights girl in the beginning and the sharp white slippers the ring leader was wearing.