Riverdance gets Chinese dancing in the aisles
There wasn't an empty seat in the 1,200-seat Poly Theatre at least there wasn't until about a third of the audience took to jigging. It was odd to see another culture appreciate our sense of craic with such ease.
What was odder still was the fact that not a drop had passed their lips before curtain-up. They're already enthralled, and they're not even half way there yet.
Now, it seems, the Chinese are in negotiations with the Riverdance people to create their own version of the show which they have adopted as their own.
Zhang Yu, the president of the China Performing Arts Agency, is one of the shows many fans.
"The biggest pressure I am coming under in my job as the head of the biggest cultural organisation in China is that I can't get Riverdance tickets for my friends and colleagues," said Mr Zhang. "That is why I am in talks with the host company of Riverdance to try to create a Chinese version of the show. My company has brought in the British Royal Ballet, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Kirov Ballet, but we've never seen any show to get the kind of response that Riverdance is getting."
Mr Zhang is just telling it like it is. The country's most popular paper, The People's Daily, ran the headline: "Why is it so hard to get a single ticket to Riverdance?"
The Beijing Youth Daily quoted one girl who told her boyfriend: "If you can get hold of a ticket to Riverdance, I'll marry you." The Chinese culture minister has even written a poem about Riverdance.
All of this Paddy-mania comes against a strange backdrop. The tickets cost 800 renminbi (about €80) and they're selling out instantly even though the tickets would cost the regular worker about three weeks wages.
If Irish culture can touch even a small proportion of China's 1.3 billion population, then now would seem to be the time to float our heritage on the world's stock markets.
America, after all, is only home to a little over 300 million people.
Arts Minister John O'Donoghue is very conscious of the potential market which China represents. By the year 2020, it is estimated that China will be the largest outbound tourist market in the world.
He said: "Thanks to our cultural exchange programmes more and more Chinese people want to go to Ireland. Later this week, the Taoiseach will sign an Approved Destination Status (ADS) agreement which I have negotiated with the Chinese Government.
"There is a deep appreciation of Riverdance and of Irish traditional music in China.
"I have also been surprised by how people at the highest levels here are aware of Ireland's history. In recent years, China has been visited by President McAleese, the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and others.
"I was here myself in 2001 as the Minister for Justice, and it is amazing how far China has come since then."
