Lai Lai Dance Hall Top Pick!

OUT Review

A grimy ballroom a bit off the beaten path offers one of the most bizarre scenes to any out cosmopolitan gay: middle-aged, mostly married, working class men who have slipped away from their lives -- and the social/familial demands that keep older generations’ closet doors shut -- waltzing, jitterbugging, doing the rumba and same-sex two-stepping to a live band and singers covering ’80s pop songs, old English ditties, and some classic revolutionary songs from the ’60s and ’70s praising Chairman Mao. On frequent nights, a standard drag revue follows. That is, if standard means “girls” in ’30s-era qipao’s or peasant garb singing revolutionary Chinese opera parts. How’s that for some quality socialist morals? More romantic than ironic, it’s undeniably fun.