Clever Siamese Girls

1898

The dancing girls of Siam are remarkable for the agility and grace of their movements. The cup dance is the prettiest and most poetic of all. A row of young girls, with a tier of cups on their heads, take their places in the middle of the great hall. A burst of joyous music follows. On hearing this they simultaneously, with military precision, kneel down, fold their hands and bow their heads until their foreheads almost touch the polished marble floor, keeping the cups steadily on their heads by some marvelous jerk of the neck. Then, suddenly springing to their feet they describe a succession of rapid and intricate circles, keeping time to the music with their arms, hands and feet.

Next the music swells into a rapturous tumult. The dancers raise their delicate feet, curve their arms and fingers in almost impossible flexures, sway to and fro like withes of willow, agitate all the muscles of the body like the flutter of leaves in the soft evening breeze, but still keep the cups on their heads.

The dancing girls of Bangkok are always exercising in the royal gymnasium. Their ages vary from five to twenty years. The curious and subtle feat of picking up a straw with the eyelids can be learned only by the youngest of them, who are made to practice it to render them flexible in every part of the body. There are two long rows of benches, one a little higher than the other. On the lower is a row of little girls, and on the upper bench are laid the polished bits of straw. At the sound of the drum the little girls, all together, bend back the head and neck until they touch the bits of straw, which, with wonderful dexterity, they secure between the corners of their eyelids.