Zeng Weiming didn't bring much with him when he moved to Beijing two years ago: a suitcase of clothes, a pillow and quilt set - and the saxophone he had been playing since he was 14. The Shenyang native dreamed of becoming a professional jazz musician and would put on his favourite Charlie Parker album as soon as he woke up each morning. Instead, the 24-year-old now finds himself sought out as one of the capital's top swing dancers and instructors.
'If you ask Chinese guys to dance, the immediate reaction from most would be 'no'. It's OK to disco, but if you ask them to take up social dance, they'll think it's not their thing,' says Zeng.
Although salsa, tango and other ballroom genres are popular, yao bai wu, as swing is called in Putonghua, is relatively unknown on the mainland. That's been changing with the help of people such as Adam Lee, the American-Chinese who set up the Swing Beijing club seven years ago and introduced many to the exhilaration of doing such standards as the Lindy Hop, Blues and the Balboa that developed with swing jazz in the 1920s, 30s and 40s.
Lee not only brought Zeng into his Beijing Big Band, he also persuaded him to sign up for swing classes, although it took six months of encouragement before the young man would eventually attempt it.
But Zeng was immediately taken by the dance form. Swing seemed to come naturally, he says. 'I simply felt very happy after the first class.'
For nearly a year, he was virtually the only Chinese man in the group - many others tried swing dancing but none persisted, he recalls. It hardly mattered that instructions were in English, which he didn't speak at the time.