K-TV

What do "Take Me To Your Heart," "Karma Chameleon," and "My Heat Will Go On" have in common? Ahhh... They are the ONLY English songs available for Karaoke at this one little dive Karaoke place near my school. Here's some background....

Tonight we went dancing at one of the dance halls in town. Old school dancing. Like 3 step, 4 step, tango, and all these other assorted Chinese dances. Picture a roller rink with a disco ball in the center... dimmed lights and a ton of Chinese couples dancing in the circle, going around and around with each song. Ahhh.. So this was my first lesson of Chinese dance. The first song was a 3 step to Silent Night... Go figure. One of my new Chinese friends teaches dance at one of the high schools so she was helping me learn how to do these dances. It was pretty hilarious, but really fun and it was just so wonderfully Chinese that I had to smile. I know that people danced like this at one point in time... It looks like there should be soldiers heading off to war or something.

After dancing, we went downstairs to find that we had tons of missed phone calls... From Mr. Cuddles. He is a PE teacher at Dyan's school. His English name is Mr. Cuddles because apparently he asked that when he wanted to be friends with her.. He said, "Can we cuddle?," instead of "Can we be friends?" His son George (also an English name) is in my 5th grade class. We went out to dinner a few weeks ago and had a great time, so now Mr. Cuddles calls me often and I talk to George in class.

Anyhow, Mr. Cuddles and his uncle and friends were doing K-TV (karaoke) next door to the dance hall and invited Dyan, Paul and me to join. Apparently the second floor of this karaoke bar is full of rentable ladies (if you know what I mean), so there were all these scandalous ladies wandering around, and a few in our room... When you do karaoke here, you rent out a room, which is full of tables and chairs and couches, and a huge tv. The tv has microphones and surround sound attached, so you can either sit on the couches or stand in the center of the room and sing out loud. It is nicer than I imagined, because you can have private karaoke parties with your buddies in a room. So in our room, the men were trying to get us drunk, but Dyan and I were tossing our beers behind the couch and they were in such bad shape they had no idea. No one was singing karaoke, so we repeated the above three songs at least 8 times each, and Dyan and I sung our hearts out in order to avoid drinking and "cuddling" with the men.

Sidenote, the beer here is miserable. It is between 1.5 and 3% alcohol and tastes like garbage and it takes liters to get you anywhere near intoxicated. Needless to say, I haven't had too much to drink here, simply because my tummy isn't big enough!

Oh. I forgot a song. I hate the Backstreet Boys. I know that a few of you out there adore them, but I have never been a fan Anyhow, I sang "I Want it That Way" so many times tonight that I think I can probably be in your little chair dance routine next time you do it... HAH!

And I found out that next to the hooker house upstairs is the public showers... so when I only get 6 minutes of hot water, I can pay to go take a communal shower with everyone in my town right near the karaoke bar and hooker house.. What a great idea, don't you think?

Tonight cracked me up. I just got home and I seriously can't stop laughing. Mainly because I will see George tomorrow, and having his father hit on me just freaks me out. But also because karaoke-ing is really fun, and because life here makes me laugh really hard. I have such fantastic new friends here in Yangzhong.

So this blog may never be published and I may get kicked out of this place because there is scandalous information included, but it's real life over here my friends, and I want to share my evening.

Lola is hopping towards me and needs some food, I need a shower and I need to go to sleep for my classes tomorrow.

Lots of love.

Cait