Square dancers cut a rug in Beijing

Whether it's a trend born out of nostalgia for decades past or just a fun way to get out and socialize, square dancing has do-si-doed its way into Beijing.

Formal, organized square dancing clubs have been cropping up in Beijing since about 1991, when a Texan expat whose name no one seems to remember introduced square dancing to the Chinese capital. Since then, its popularity has expanded year by year, spread largely by word of mouth.

In 2008, about 25 people, mostly retirees in their sixties, left a much larger square-dancing club to start the Sunshine Square Dance Club, led by Zhang Jian.

For 10 yuan (1.63 U.S. dollars) per three-hour training session, members can practice their moves and pick up some new ones from a seasoned Taiwanese dance instructor and square dance caller.

Authentically clad in imported ruffled skirts and shirts, as well as the occasional cowboy hat, the group mostly dances to lively country music and their moves are as American as apple pie.

The club's practices and events are not all about cutting a rug and making merry, though.

"There is no fixed pattern in square dance. Dancers have to be constantly alert to the callers spontaneous commands," Zhang says, adding, "Those who join us in square dancing have to love a challenge."

Meanwhile, on Friday nights, the Hutong Yellow Weasels can be found playing music, calling square dances and leading singalongs, which they refer to as "hillbilly karaoke," at a small microbrewery located in Beijing's historical hutongs -- the sometimes decaying, often vibrant alleyways of traditional courtyard homes and shops.

In the hipster heart of Beijing, where traditional homes, microbreweries, boutique hotels and shops selling everything from shiny new fixed-gear bikes to vintage clothes intermingle, the Hutong Yellow Weasels play old-timey American folk songs to an audience of foreigners, hip Chinese 20- and 30-somethings and curious passersby.

As in the United States, interest in old-time American folk music is mounting in Beijing. The style came as a precursor to bluegrass and the blues that had its heyday in the U.S., especially in mountainous areas and other places where geography limited interaction with the outside world, in the 1920s and 1930s.

"City people had pianos," Chris Hawke, the Hutong Yellow Weasels' upright bassist and one of its founders, explains. "But you can't get a piano up a mountain."

The band has even had over 100 songs from their "hillbilly karaoke" songbook translated into Chinese, which brings the local audience into the fold, combining something foreign -- American old-timey music -- and something familiar -- karaoke.

"They're bloody, about sex," says Sun Siyu, a Communications University of China student who helped to translate some of the songs. "They're very different from Chinese folk songs."

Sun says she learned a lot by translating the songs, which often contain Biblical and historical references that may no longer even be familiar to many Americans.