karaoke faux pas

David and I were hanging out in Andy's office on Friday, talking about our project, when Andy got a phone call from his driver, Lou Ing, or maybe her sister-- he wasn't sure who. Whoever it was, he was instructed that he was to have dinner with them that night and then go to karaoke.

I love karaoke. I told Andy about how much I enjoy going and singing and how last semester I went frequently with a bunch of theorists and friends. So he invited me and David and the other grad students along to karaoke.

David and Aaron were interested in going so the three of us decided to grab dinner and then meet up with Andy & co afterwards. Aaron and I didn't have any strong opinions about food and David was excited about going to the In Time Department Store food court so that is where we ended up. The Food Court had a similar lay out to ones in the states-- a ring of booths selling food with chairs and tables in the middle. But it was all Chinese food. "No!" said David. "There’s other food as well—there’s Japanese food and Korean food and over there is a pizza place." So, aside from the lack of Au Bon Pain, the main difference between this food court and American food courts is the fact that it’s slightly more expensive than restaurant food.

After dinner, we hopped in a cab and headed down to the karaoke place by the lake. We walked into a large fancy lobby that reminded me of lobbies of luxurious hotels. There were large chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Staff in starched white shirts, black vests and black pants rushed around. People impatiently sat on large leather sofas and bunched around the counter shouting for attention. We had difficulty getting the staff’s attention and were unable to get through to Lou Ing's cell phone. So we set out down the corridors hoping to find them.

We walked down hallways lined with hundreds and hundreds of karaoke rooms. Each room was set up like a living room in someone's house. There were comfortable sofas arranged around a large glass coffee table and a large screen television on one wall. There were a table and chairs on the other side of the room with another television. In one corner is a computer where you can put in song numbers and there are a couple of microphones. Each room was full of people. We wandered through the maze, peeking in the glass windows in each door, down hallway after hallway.

We felt hopeless. We were convinced that we would never find them. We asked the staff if they'd seen "a white guy with two Chinese ladies" and they all said no. They were very busy. It was Friday night. Eventually we ran into a staff member who was on the radio network. She said something into her microphone and five minutes later we were in the right karaoke room.

Andy was there with his daughters. Lou Ing brought her teenage son and sister. And there was this guy in a suit in the corner who had brought his teenage son. We were informed that he was an important television producer. The table was covered in food from a buffet. They were drinking tea.

All the Chinese people were belting out these beautiful Chinese songs. They were on key, in tune, and on beat. They knew the words. They sang back up for each other. They were really good. But we didn't know any of the songs they were singing.

We took a look at the song list. There were about fifty songs in English, maybe ten of which I knew. The choices were slim-- Madonna, the Beatles, Carly Simon. This was going to require some serious alcohol. We looked at the menu and saw that we had two alcohol options-- beer (mostly Chinese beers plus Corona and Bud) and hard alcohol by the bottle. We felt tired of Chinese beer so we decided to order a bottle of vodka and a few cokes and tonics to mix it with.

Lou Ing said No. She said that we're drinking tea and thats it. We can't order alcohol. But we wanted to pay for it. So we ordered in anyways.

The vodka arrived and Aaron, David, Andy and I took shots. Andy's daughters didn't want to sing so we promised to sing anything they put into the computers. They got to work and put in a bunch of songs.

The first song I sang was "Total Eclipse of the Heart." This song is difficult but I think I did an ok job. This was followed by "Daniel" by Elton John and "Fever"-- not by Peggy Lee but by Madonna. A disaster. Then more and more songs. Andy sang and danced. Aaron sang "Welcome to the Jungle." David sang "Sixteen going on Seventeen" from the Sound of Music. I tried to sing songs I didn't know. And as the night wore on and I drank more, my voice got worse and worse.

When the songs came on, the words were projected on the large screen TV. The background was of white people, sometimes in bathing suits, in what appeared to be hotel commercials. The words were sometimes wrong and out of order.

At midnight our time ran out on the room so we headed home. The guys dropped me off at the apartment and went out for lamb sticks and more drinks at the Reggae bar. I crawled into bed only spend the next day having one of my top five hang overs. It hailed. It snowed. I spent the next day reintroducing food and water into my body. I was in a world of pain.

We saw Andy again on Sunday when we all went to Lin An to go hiking. On the bus, he told us that he thinks he committed a huge faux pas on Friday night.

In the States, if you are invited to go out for something, you can usually bring friends if everyone is paying for themselves and the event is in public (such as karaoke). If someone has invited to "take you out" or to a private function then you probably shouldn't invite along other people.

That is not how it works in China.

If someone invites you out, they intend to pay for you. (You can't argue with them. They will be insulted if you try to pay.)

It was Lou Ing's sister that called Andy to invite him to karaoke-- not Lou Ing-- because it was Lou Ing's sister who was going to pay. When Andy mentioned that he wanted to bring his students (of which, he has many and he didn't know how many would come), Lou Ing's sister had to book a much bigger room, which is significantly more expensive. Andy was oblivious to the fact that these rules apply for more than just dinner. And when we ordered vodka, we weren’t letting her be our hostess. We are going to have to take Lou Ing and her sister out for karaoke sometime.