Monsters and KTV

Our pronunciation teacher is rather strict. Class time is filled with lots of wrong，no，try again，no，listen to me, no , again, again, again, no, wrong, etc.

The other day after class I was walking down the hall with a classmate. Our teacher was approaching us from the other end of the hall. As we neared, 30ft to go, we notice her begin to stutter-step and cower against a wall eyes blinking frantically. There was something near the ceiling approaching her, and she was scared. It flew closer. She gave a scream and made a full retreat. It was a butterfly. Seeing her cower before the pretty butterfly was quite the contrast to pronunciation warden we had experience just 10 minutes prior.

Last night we went out for dinner with a Chinese student group. I didn't catch the name of the group, but their purpose is to welcome and entertain foreign students. It was great fun. We left at 5 for a hot pot restaurant near campus. Hot pot is exactly what it sounds like. A great big pot set in the middle of the table kept hot by a charcoal fire. Various meats, vegetables, and fungus are then ordered to put in the pot. The pot is filled with water and a few spices and let to boil. Once boiling, you just start putting food in and taking food out. Most things are cut thin and only take a minute to cook. We had lamb, beef, 6 types of mushroom, various root veggies, tofu or different sorts and some greens.

Hot Pot and Korean BBQ are two types of restaurants were you do all the cooking, right on your table.

Around 7 we left for the infamous KTV. There are KTV's throughout China and similar enterprises throughout asia. KTV is a karaoke joint. This one was particularly dark and shady. After entering the door we were met by four KTV employees wearing white dress shirts, black slacks, and CIA earpieces. The room was very dim and there was loud music. After price negotiation, we were led down an even darker stairway with a low ceiling to the dark basement. The basement had approximately 15 equally dark rooms with mirrored walls, couch space for 10, two mics, flatscreen tv, touch screen karaoke control, and strobe light. We entered our room, the door closed, and thus began the next 5 hours.

It was quite fun to watch and hear the chinese students sing. Some were quite good. It was also interesting to hear lots of chinese music. After 5 hours of chinese music, and confidently say love is the primary theme, seconded only by the desire to find love and marriage. All the songs were rather serious and very heartfelt. It made for a rather emotion experience. Since it was a karaoke place, there was a tv. One the tv were the words to songs and also music videos to go with the songs. Most were dramatic and involved a young man and a young women loving one another, but more often feeling heartache over being separated or lonely.

It didnt take long for me and Tony to get dragged into the fun. There were english songs too! Oh boy. I dont have much singing practice, nor am i familiar with the random assortment of pop songs from the 70's-90's that was available. Tony and struggled through several rather poor songs that we had never heard before, or mistakenly heard on the radio. I dont remember most, didnt recognize most, but Ricki Martin and Richard Marx come to mind. Also a song called Venus that went something like "Im your venus. im your fire. im your desire." What i would have given for hips dont lie.

dress shirt and slacks. She just ran around, chewed gum, smiled at the camera, was chased by the camera, pretended to swing a baseball bat, and was If the english music selection was appalling enough, the music videos that went with the songs would do anyone in. The videos were not the originals. They involved 1 or 2 white foreigners, shot mostly in the US. One video simply had a women dressed in a baseball cap, oversized mensudderly ridiculous for the duration of the song. The song had nothing to do with baseball, or this ridiculous woman. Another video had a man with a rather unattractive bush of neck hair escaping the neck of his t shirt. The man ate a popsickle, waved a sparkler around, and held a rose. The video was shot using green screen, which was replaced with hideous 80's stlye neon color kaleidescopetry. The ricky martin video consisted a women wearing very short cutoff jean shorts and some tight top. She just posed on a porch and next to a motorcycle for the video. At least the motorcycle had BC plates.

I felt pretty bad as "cultural ambassador." The american movies (although there weren't necessarily even shot, produced, or of Americans, the association was clear) were appalling poor. Not only that, but in comparison to the heartfelt emotional chinese videos, the american videos were outright embarrassing. I am not saying the original videos or even other american music videos are good, but that the representation of american culture these videos gave was depressing.

Nevertheless it was fun. Just picture me singing Ricky Martin Livin la vida loca.
http://picasaweb.google.com/xisphias/ktv