Post-Olympics, it’s too easy to mock China for being overly perfect and monolithic. That’s why it’s also easy to completely adore any Chinese attempt to break rank, like the Hip-Hop Grannies, a booty-shaking geriatric dance troupe from Beijing.
The Grannies dance group was formed when founder Wu Ying realized;

Hip-hop dancing would be perfect for not only keeping herself in shape, but for China’s elderly as a whole. Not content with the slow speed of taichi or Peking opera like other Chinese retirees, she began taking hip-hop classes around Beijing before coaxing friends of her own age to join her.

Video of the ladies, taking names and kicking ass:

The Grannies had to overcome disapproval from both the National and local front, to achieve their dream of international recognition.

Wu Ying soon found another 4 women, and after 6 months of training and rehearsals, the Hip-Hop grannies made their debut at the Beijing qualifier for the National Hip-Hop Dancing Competition.

However,

Wu’s family could have been a bit more supportive in the beginning, she said, especially her daughter. “She said, ‘This is just great. There are a bunch of young hooligans dancing on the streets out there, now I have an old hooligan dancing in my own household.’ The way she said those words was very hard for me to accept. It was so condescending,” Wu said.

It’s been a bit of an uphill struggle since then, but the Grannies haven’t let anything stand in their way, and their age has even become an asset. Lots of women in China felt a gap in their life and decided the more passive exericse options weren’t enough. The oldest member in their group, as of now, is a 74 year old woman, and one of the “younger” ones is 55.

According to many of the ladies, this kind of fun and exercise is a relatively new development in China, since regulations used to be more strict under the pure Communist rule;

“When I was young, my life was to go to work and come home, then take care of my family. There was no other way of exercising. There was nothing. If I wanted to exercise, I had to stretch against a wall,” Wu said.

Nowadays, the Grannies can do whatever the heck they want, much to the delight of Chinese and youtubers everywhere. Their only limit seems to be what they understand, which, luckily for us, seems to exclude the entire English language.

“I heard that some of (their words) are really liberated, but I thought to myself that it couldn’t be that bad…,” said Wu. “If it’s too open-minded, as old people, we would have a hard time dancing along. We don’t like music like that. We like music that’s like sunshine … and encourages people to embrace the world, the sky and nature,” Wu said.

Yeah, we’re grateful this Thanksgiving for old ladies who dance wholeheartedly to funky beats without understanding exactly what “call me for’ you come/ got to shave my cho-cha” means.

China grannies take hip-hop over hip replacements [Reuters]
China’s Hip-Hop Grannies Pop Lock and Drop it [Blackvoices]