On holiday the host country always trying to rope you into its traditional national dancing

“This would be when one of the dancers says “Follow me and just do what I do “  and expecting you to pull off a right-first-time emulation of what they can do after a lifetime of practice as well as being half your age , in the peak of physical condition and with  a suppleness and parts of the body you can only dream of.”

So says Mervin Fretwell, the commentator on Quot cultural affairs , who points out that nevertheless the very invitation to join in the national dancing is a great honour and to refuse it is sometimes taken by a host country as an offensive snub.

” National dancing is not necessarily intended to be a ritual humiliation for foreign tourists  and there are places where the snorts of suppressed laughter which always accompany their efforts to pull off the dance are just a token of the natives’ appreciation – although sometimes its subtleties may be lost in translation.The social and political benefits of communal dancing by way of achieving  cross-cultural bonding has long been recognised in diplomatic circles – “Nation Shall Dance Peace Unto Nation “. Many is the international summit at which it has only been the eleventh-hour dancing ( or ‘the all-night negotiations’ as the official communiqués call it ) which has tipped the balance and finally brought about the agreements brokered in treaties from Versailles to Maastricht.  

(Fergus Bunting , Tiverton) - QQQ**