Teenagers in Asia line up for parapara
By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY
HONG KONG — To Asia's trendiest teens, Dance Dance Revolution is, like, so five minutes ago.
They've moved on to a newer phenomenon from Japan: parapara dancing.
Hong Kong teenagers congregate by the dozens, even the hundreds, in Kowloon Park here and in shopping mall arcades to practice parapara moves and exchange tips. Some study new moves on instructional videos or download them from the Internet.
Parapara looks a little like American line dancing. Teens line up for the routines. Dancers shuffle their feet back and forth, almost listlessly, to a saccharine pop beat. The real action is in the arms and upper body. Dancers memorize arm motions — pointing, circling, flicking their wrists — for each song. And there are hundreds of songs to learn.
"Dance Dance Revolution is just moving your feet," says high school student Kaka Li, 18. "Parapara is moving your whole body."
Li knows maybe 15 routines and is envious of her friend Debby Poon, 19, who knows more than 50.
Li stops by an arcade in the Silvercord shopping center in Hong Kong's bustling Tsim Sha Tsui district twice a week to practice. Poon is there every day.
"I spend so much time on parapara, my studying is not so good," Li admits.
Parapara has been around for more than a decade in Japan. But it took off in 1999 when Japanese heartthrob Kimura Takuya, a singer and actor, started showing off parapara moves on television.
The sensation spread across Asia when Konami — the Japanese company that makes Dance Dance Revolution machines — began marketing its ParaParaParadise machines in arcades across the region. Now the parapara craze stretches from Seoul to Singapore.
On the ParaParaParadise screen, an animated dancer in a bikini top and bell-bottom pants shows dancers what to do. Infrared sensors monitor how well the dancers follow the routines.
Still, the parapara craze hasn't done much for Konami. Addison Man, Konami's sales and service chief in Hong Kong, concedes that dancers don't really need a machine to parapara. They can just line up with their friends and dance. Overall, the company's regional sales are down 30% from last year, parapara craze or not, and Konami as yet doesn't plan to introduce the machine in the USA.
Others have tried to cash in. A recent Hong Kong movie — Para Para Sakura — sought to graft a parapara theme onto a traditional love story.
Didn't work, complains parapara devotee Li, who gives the flick a lackluster three stars out of five.
"Most of the film is a love story," Li says. "It is not a parapara movie."
搵到啦
parapara
