JUST inside the gates of Tiantan (Temple of Heaven) Park in south Beijing yesterday, hundreds of couples, young and old, danced the fox trot on a rectangle of concrete the size of a soccer pitch, shuffling around to tinny music from a loudspeaker.
Further into the park, in a small area of tarmacadam at the juncture of four paths, several dozen people were doing the waltz, and beyond that, beneath a clump of fir trees, others were sedately jiving and twisting to music from a boombox.
What made this scene quite surreal was the time: just after six o'clock in the morning. In the West party goers dance until dawn, but in China ordinary people start dancing as the sun comes up.
It sounds romantic but it's not really. Ballroom dancing is only one of dozens of different kinds of exercise practised by Chinese people in city parks in the early morning. I have seen similar pictures at dawn in other Chinese cities and in other open spaces - including an overpass on the Beijing ring road where a group regularly dances the quickstep.
It was quite misty yesterday morning, in Taintan Park, where the Ming and Qing emperors used to offer sacrifices at first light on the Altar of Heaven, but walking among the ash and cypress trees, one could see every kind of activity which the Chinese people utilise to loosen up and keep fit.
On one path, as far as the eye could see, long rows of people performed aerobics, taking their cue from volunteer leaders. In a clearing, several dozen people sat motionless on improvised cushions, their hands outstretched like Buddhas. Elsewhere elderly Chinese performed dances with chopsticks, which they used to tap their shoulders, arms, legs and waists to musical accompaniment, or did "animal exercises", imitating the movement of tigers, deer, bears, monkeys or birds.
And here and there men silently performed taijiquan, shadow boxing with graceful and slow kung fu like motions, highly valued or toning the muscles and improving the circulation flow, or engaged in other forms of martial arts with invisible opponents. Some arched their arms upwards in a circle symbolically splitting the primordial unity of the cosmos into yin and yang, or carved intricate patterns in the air with large swords.
Individuals also did their own thing among the trees, carefully hanging their jackets on branches and then performing qigong breathing exercises to train their body to concentrate all its strength into one place. Here and there, lone Beijing residents shook themselves down, arched their backs against tree trunks, walked backwards or patted the tops of their heads, all with an absolute lack of self consciousness.
In one section of the 675 acre park, strollers emitted hooting sounds, releasing tensions through their vocal chords, and hawked and spat noisily on the ground.
It was not all performance. Even at 6.30 a.m. there were men playing cards, dominoes and mahjong, surrounded by groups of critical spectators, beside the Gate of Prayer for Good Harvests. In the rose garden, pensioners hung cages on larch trees, removed white cloth covers and allowed their song birds to chirrup to their hearts' content.
One corner of the park featured one of the strangest scenes - and the most dissonant sound of all, at least to western ears. At the North Heavenly Gate aficionados had gathered, as they do every dawn, to sing popular numbers from Beijing opera.
It was practically all over by 8 o'clock, when tourists began arriving and broke the magic. The dancers and shadow boxers put on their coats and left, and Tiantan became just an ordinary Chinese park again.