KTV

For those of you that don't know what KTV is...youtube it!

I will never be able to explain KTV in a way that does it justice. I've been twice, and both times have been completely insane, yet completely different. But in a nutshell: Karaoke, in a small private room, a massive screen and shedload of Chinese people.

The first time. I am so grateful that nobody had a camera!

I went with a group of English teachers (only one of whom could actually speak to me) and Yuky. Arrived. First song waiting for me "Poker Face"...yey. I think I've probably mentioned GaGa in front of some students about 5 times. And somehow this had gone back to the teachers. The only reason I've mentioned the bloody woman is because the students' knowledge of any English songs  is restricted to Westlife, Elvis, MJ and Gaga! So I sucked it up and murdered the song (not that there was much of a song to murder in the first place, in my opinion).

Over the next few hours I heard various versions of Chinese power ballads, cheesy pop and Chinese "rock". All sang pretty well actually. I left thinking that every single Chinese person could carry a tune (I found out the second time I went that this is not the case).

Then the games began! Picture drinking games, without the drinking. The first one was a group game of paper, rock, scissors. WAW!! Just to add even more fun to this, they played it to the beat of the music!! And to make it THE most fun game in the world, they added a little dance to the beginning! I hope to god the sarcasm comes across.

I had no idea how to play. How the hell does scissors manage to beat rock, rock beat paper (ok that I can understand) and paper beat scissors? I always thought the Chinese were an intelligent bunch of people. 

Now what added to the already immense level of fun in the game was the forfeits (again, I hope you get the sarcasm). So you lose the game, you do a forfeit. That's understandable. But jeeeez the forfeits were like something out of a playschool gym class. Picture this:

"Haaaaa you lose" (everyone points and laughs, loser is chuckling away nervously)

"Oh no! Now what do I have to do? I hope it isn't too bad"

"You've got to stand on one foot for 5 seconds" 

(Loser starts to stand on one foot, with a lot of dramatic wobbling)

"Haaa look at him, it's hilarious. He looks so silly"

(The entire gang is wetting themselves)

I would like to add that this was all in Chinese, so I might have made it up. But that's the just of it.

Other "wilder" forfeits included running around the table 3 times, jumping up and down 5 times, walking from one side of the room to the other with your eyes closed, saying the alphabet backwards, counting from 1-15 in one breath. I sat there laughing fakely (new word right there) for three hours. Can't really get much worse right?

"Liwsi, you want to dance?"
I'm thinking "Ohhh yes! At last we're going to a nightclub, I don't care if they're not drinking, there will be alcohol in the vicinity, I'm sorted" (it was only 7pm at this point)

"Yeah, ok then" (grabbed my bag, people started leaving. Leaving 3 of us in the room)

"Yey, me too" (Yuky goes to the karaoke machine and turns the volume up to 90, then turns around throwing her arms in the air to dance)

I kid you not. Three of us stood in that room WITH NO ALCOHOL and "danced" for 30 looooong minutes. I cannot dance for shit (neither can they it turns out, although I'm not sure if they're aware of that). I do not dance unless I have a good few gallons of alcohol running through every single blood vessel in my body or a bottle in my hand. But no. This time I had gallons of green tea in my blood vessels and sunflower seeds in my hand. Not only did I have to dance, while sober, with two Chinese school teachers. But I had to dance to Chinese music! Chinese music is so bizarre you don't even know if the song is a happy one or a sad one. You would assume a music video with people dressed as penguins would be a happy song, but no, it turns out it's about an artist who killed himself after his wife fell off a motorbike!

Needless to say, I was not looking forward to my next karaoke outing. 

But the Chinese did what they do best and sprung it on me by surprise. 

I had been invited for dinner by Jay (the little noodles and nuts guy previously mentioned). The father of one of the students had invited all her teachers to dinner. I'm told that some teachers do this at least once a week. I felt quite honoured to be asked. So I went along with no make-up and jippo clothes (as I had 5 minutes to grab my stuff and go), I'm foreign so it's acceptable.

I tried to ask who the student was, and was told her Chinese name. I see this class twice a week and there's almost 60 kids in the class. I can only remember a few (the funniest) English names, let alone any Chinese names. I got there and asked (through Jay) the father if he had a photo of his daughter (he described her as shy and fat, as there's not many overweight people in China I had a rough idea who he was talking about). Still couldn't tell you her name though.

So the rice wine was flowing, Jay had told me to only drink as much as I was comfortable with drinking and that I didn't have to drink if I didn't want to. Then his words started slurring and I worked out that the reason he wanted me to slow down is because the bloke's a lightweight, and he didn't want a white girl drinking him under the table. Again, bearing in mind I weigh a good few stone more than him, so you can see how.

The teachers were all asking about my Chinese, so I showed them how much I knew by saying "Ni jiao shenme ming zi?" (What's your name?). One answered "Wo jiao Jack". I was thinking "Ahh ok Jack, it's a decent English name, I'll remember that". 

Not one of them could say my name, so they started calling me Rose. How hard is Liwsi to say? Or Lucy even?! There is not one phoneme there that they don't have in their own language. But, nevertheless, I now have a new English name...Rose. Lucky me.

More of the men started telling me then that their name was also Jack. I just thought it was a popular name. Then the music teacher pointed to Jay (who was swaying in his seat at this point), and said that his name was Jack. This confused the hell out of me. I thought I had messed up and had been calling this guy by the wrong name for the whole time I'd been here.

I then clicked when the music teacher started humming "My heart will go on". NOT IMPRESSED. Rose and Jack. Liwsi and Jay. Isn't that hilarious. Well done you. Making a joke in English. Clever, clever sods. The word "awkward" springs to mind when describing the rest of the evening. 

I then started toasting more people, just so I could get more wine in the system to make the whole thing go away. 

THEN we went to KTV. I walked in last, they all cheered, thrust a mic into my hand (while Jay had the other one) and put on "My freaking heart will freaking go on". I have never appreciated wine so much in my life! Then the beers came in. The father had bought two crates and shared them around. They don't even drink beer casually, out of the bottle here. You pour it into a glass, say "cheers" to somebody then neck the content of the glass (wish someone would have told me this BEFORE I filled the glass up to the rim). 

The rest of the night consisted of me slow dancing with the head teacher (registration teacher) of class 101, beer, being serenaded in Chinese by the music teacher, beer, being a shoulder to cry on for the Geography teacher ("I'm not pl-ity nhone of zees tee-chas want to tayk me on d-ates", "Oh I'm sure they do, they're just shy, "Jay, JAY, JAAAYYY you'll take Belinda on a date won't you?"), beer and nudging Jay back to an upright position on the sofa every 5 minutes. 

God, I'm cringing just thinking about it.

I had also agreed to observe one of Jay's classes with 101. Thinking it would be next week. But no, no, no...7.30 the following morning!! I think he was finding it a bit more painful than me!! Mwahahahaha!

Apologies for typos or just bad English. Just don't tell my bosses.

Michael and Jack duet

Rose, Belinda, token Chinese pose and Michael

Maths Jack, Jay Jack, Music Jack, Physics Jack and Moral Studies Jack

Yes, it's cold in China right now.