What is this "KTV" you speak of???

Essential KTV Equipment

Karaoke television (or more commonly just KTV) is a favorite Chinese pastime. Many of our students and co-workers indulge once or twice a month and we go occasionally when we're invited. Though you all are familiar with karaoke from bars across America, KTV definitely has its very own Chinese spin.

Rather than getting up in front of a bunch of strangers and singing in a bar, you rent a room for a set amount of time. The room is private for you or your party, and it comes equipped with two or more tv screens, several microphones, booth seating, a disco ball, and a computer loaded with China's favorite hits (aka Michael Jackson and Avril Lavigne.)

Brandice, Me & Dani (Spring 2013)

You can order food and drinks to your room, including tea, beer, whiskey, popcorn, fruit, and chicken feet! Needless to say, our group orders drinks more often than food. You can ask for sets of dice to be brought to the room, which make for one of China's favorite drinking games.

Don't want to sing? There's always dice to be played or beer to be drunk.

Once you select a song to sing, it queues up on the computer, like a normal karaoke machine. There's actually a fair selection of English songs, but it's always a coin-toss whether they'll have the particular song you're looking for. When your song plays, the rest is fairly similar to regular karaoke, except for a couple extra perks. There's no need to leave your seat to sing. The microphones are wireless, so if you want to perform from the comfort of your booth, you can! Also, with no DJ, you have a little more freedom concerning how you sing. You can pause or skip songs, you can choose whether or not to play the voice track of the song's artist, and for the brave-of-heart, you can choose to remove the lyrics from the tv screen.

Alex showing up the students.

All in all, we enjoy KTV a bit more than your run-of-the-mill karaoke night in an American bar, because it's basically our own private party. It's pretty affordable, especially if you share the cost with some friends, and it can be a lot of fun. Everyone has a better time when they aren't singing in front of a bar full of strangers.

This doesn't happen often...

Since Shantou is a city with few entertainment attractions, you can probably imagine that KTV is pretty popular. It isn't our favorite activity here, but our students love it. Typically, when we go, it's because we've been invited by students, friends, or fellow teachers. Most recently, the school had a KTV shindig to give the students a relaxing atmosphere to get to know the staff a little better. But now that the summer rush is over and students are leaving, we are getting new invitations from students who want to see us a last time. That's actually what we're planning on doing tomorrow night.

Take care for now & we'll post again next week!

Elise & Alex

Posted with Blogsy