Noise, Rats, Kara and Oke

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KTV, or Karaoke to you and me, is massive here. I know the stereotype is of drunk Japanese businessmen singing along with Shakira songs until the early hours but that image applies just as accurately to China as it does to Japan or anywhere else. The KTV bars themselves are quite literally on every street, in this city at least. There aren't a huge amount of normal bars or clubs here and so often on work nights out, birthdays, or other general celebrations, KTV seems to be the go-to-place.

The ones I have seen have entrances and reception desks that have a very real feel of a fancy hotel about them. Once you have booked your room, you go to the shop and buy whatever you think you will need to help you sing infront of people (in my case green tea, nuts and something that was a bit like a flump) and you go into this dark room with a tele on one wall, a big sofa and lights shining and flickering in the dark surroundings like little stars. Then you sing. It's not even like one of those chain ones we have in England where you go in for an hour and then go out afterwards, given that here it is the end point of what you are doing that day or night, you stay for a long time. We were there for almost four hours.

There is a good selection of Western music as far as I've seen and I ripped through some pretty stirring versions of Thriller, Does Your Mother Know, Mmmbop, There She Goes, Ferry Across The Mersey, Penny Lane and Hello amongst others, as well as achieving something of a childhood dream by singing six REM songs. The only down side was that there was no Court Of King Caractacus to be found, meaning that we'll almost certainly be taking our business elsewhere next time, somewhere must have it. Rolf Harris must have already hit these shores - why else would everyone be smiling all the time?

One thing that is worth bearing in mind if you ever do it is that my experience is that the rooms/booths are not as soundproof as either the singer or the unwitting, innocent passer-by would probably wish them to be. Also, a lot seem to have cameras projecting your booth, complete with all your green tea fuelled dance moves back onto the TVs in the reception area. Annoyingly, I found this out too late and the funny looks I got on the way out confirmed that Chinese songs are perhaps not quite as danceable as I found the Western ones to be.

Something else that kind of goes hand in hand with the KTV is the sheer level of noise here. As I sit writing this at 10oclock at night (although to be honest the noise level is more or less the same irrespective of what time of the day or night it is) in our flat on the tenth floor, in a city that no one outside of China has ever heard of, I can hear music from the dancing in the square, singing from KTV, fireworks, shouting in the street, and a ridiculous amount of car horns. Like in New York, there are signs up everywhere saying you can't use your horn but they are wilfully and cheerfully ignored. To be fair, the beeping is absolutely necessary due to the standard of driving, the braveness/lack of awareness/stupidity of pedestrians and scooter riders and the amount of people who simply just drive on the wrong side of the road because it's quicker for them. The horns are used as a warning that a bigger car or a more aggressive driver is coming so watch yourself, although in truth when everyone's doing it, it does start to lose it's effect. Most of the time, the horns and all the other noise give the place a nice feel I think. It reminds you that you're in such a massive and overcrowded place, it provides an interesting backing track of sorts to everything else that you are constantly trying to take in and, more so than that, it just suits the place really. You couldn't have a bustling, neon light filled city where people are jostling and pushing everywhere you go that has all the noise and atmosphere of a village library or a Liverpool home game. That said, there are times, particularly after a long day at work where you'd give anything for everyone just to shut up for two minutes.

On an entirely unrelated note - there really is no link so don't worry about looking for one - while eating street food one day last week I felt something light, kind of tickling my knee, so I looked away from my noodles to be faced with a rat just sitting there, staring at me. This was clearly quite a surprise, although fortunately, my reactions were in no way quick enough to piece together all of the varying emotions I was feeling (shock, annoyance, hunger, laughter and fear - not so much of the rat, as it's not like it was something genuinely scary like a wasp, but more of the reaction I'd get if I screamed like a girl with so many people around) so all my brain could tell my face to do was stare at it with a kind of blank, slightly confused expression. This seemed to do the trick as it ran down my right leg but then just ran up my left one instead. By now my brain had kicked in a bit so I half-heartedly waved my hand at it and it jumped off. It went as far as the lady who had cooked our food who kicked it away meaning it ran out into the street where an old man, who was just passing by, nonchalantly but with the reactions of a cheetah, stamped on it's head. It kind of left us with an odd feeling, because while I don't like seeing any animal die, even one who was just trying to eat my lunch (although if you do have a problem with animal cruelty, China is not the place to visit), you couldn't help but admire the way that the man hit a moving target like that. For his part he didn't even break stride and just carried on like it was the most normal thing in the world, which here, it pretty much is. It does, however, still strike me as strange that people barely even look up for something like this but when a guy in a booth makes a damn good fist of the 'Shiny Happy People' dance, he gets stared at like he's got three heads.

Pura Vida

Dave

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