Chinese Moon Festival Party and KTV
Things over here are going very well. Saturday was the Chinese Moon Festival, so my class had a lot of parties and invited me to them. Now when I say “party” what do you think of? Music? Dancing? Talking? Drinking? Games? What exactly does it mean to have fun? How does our cultural environment influence what we think is fun? Is it also defined by age? (Ok, I think I have been teaching a little too much, I’ve turned into “Question Heather”) The point is, I went to college parties thrown by students of my age, but this “party” consisted of sitting around, eating moon cakes, drinking Pepsi and grape juice with 3% alcohol (yes I tried to get a buzz but it did not work) and making people stand in the middle and sing a song or recite a poem.
Since I was the token foreigner, a lot of the party centered around my singing a song, or songs. I sang requests, from Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” to “The Power of Love.” Did some Mariah Carey, also sang “I Swear,” “I will be right there waiting for you,” and of course, some Backstreet Boys. I didn’t even know I knew all of these songs but I was practically forced to keep singing and singing. Yes, I also taught them dances, such as the Macarena, the Running Man, the Cabbage Patch, and naturally the Roger Rabbit. They asked me to teach them some Western dances and these are the dances that came to my mind. You have not lived until you watch a bunch of Chinese 22-year-old college students doing the cabbage patch and running rabbit. We also played games like, “How Fast Can You Eat the Apple,” which pretty much goes like this: everyone has to eat an apple, and whoever eats it the fastest is a winner! At one of the parties all the students got into a big fight with whip cream from a cake and put it all over each other. One student asked me if I thought they were crazy. I said, “Oh, yes, you are very crazy!” He said he thinks they are crazy because in China school is so hard and they don’t get much time to relax so when they do relax, they just have so much fun. The parties all ended by 10:00 at the latest. Like I said, crazy fun!
Welcome to School, Chinese Science Students - here is your tongue twister and Pop Song
I also found out I am to give a performance in a week at the big party welcoming the freshman to school after a month of military training. It will be for the whole science department. So, I am working on a Chinese tongue twister and put together a skit with some of my other students. I will also be singing, “I want it that way” by the Backstreet Boys with one of my more out-going students, Rock.
KTV in China is nothing more than a whorefest! Young, scantily-dressed girls abound and are yours for the asking. Sure, you sit around and sing karaoke, drink, play dice, and have fun, but you are expected to purchase a girl for companionship. You can purchase the girl to simply sit with you and pour your drinks, all the way up to bed for the evening. Some of these girls looked to be very young. I would image some were 13-14 years old, but others were in their later teens and 20’s. I found the whole incident to be very sad and turned my stomach. Gladly, I did not do anything more than have my drinks poured, but others I saw were taking pure advantage of the opportunity that was presented to them. I would not have even done that if the Chinese company I went to visit had not paid for everything ahead of time. I must admit, the Chinese are very hospitable. I am sure I offended them slightly when I kept refusing the girl for the evening. When one of the Chinese men asked why I did not want my girl, I simply stated, “that is not what I do.”
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