Karaoke Ambush

With Bob now in China, it seemed the time was right for our first big night out in China. The plan was originally dinner and a movie, but that changed to dinner and a bar after dinner took a very long (though enjoyable) amount of time.

We ended up at a seafood restaurant for dinner, though when it came time to order we discovered that none of us Chinese or American much cared for seafood or knew how to order it. Undeterred, I was elected captain of ordering food as usual and proceeded about the business of selecting my culinary desires.

This restaurant, however, was different from normal restaurants in that it had no conventional menu. Instead, Culinary Captain Chris had to go to the front of the restaurant to look at the displays of fresh ingredients and already made dishes to make selections. Luckily the waitress had suggestions, as I didn't know which of the 15 fish options displayed before me were good and didn't know how any was prepared. I have pictures to document the entire trip, and perhaps the best part was her convincing me that ordering a duck would be a great idea. The whole thing came to the table, and we got some good pictures of our Chinese friends and us trying to figure out how to eat the duck head.

After dinner, we decided to head to a bar to see a concert. One of the friends we were with had sat next to a musician on a train a month prior, and he had told her his band would be playing at a concert downtown on the very night we were out, so we decided it was worth the trip to go check his band out. Bob was conquered by time difference tiredness and didn't make it, and thus I was the only white person on this adventure. In fact, I was the only white person I saw in the entire bar despite it being very nice and seeming to cater both in higher price and decoration to western tastes. I should have immediately known that being the only white person would have implications for what would happen later in the evening.

The music was great. We arrived in time for the second set, which was mainly them singing covers of American songs. When we entered they were singing Sweet Child of Mine as their closing song for the second set, and I must admit they sang it quite well. After a short break they returned, and the third set was them taking requests written on napkins from the audience. My friends of course asked me what some of my favorite songs were, and we started writing them down to turn in. The first we requested was played, so we requested another. This one was turned down, and my friend didn't understand and really wanted them to play it. The last requested song they played was "Hotel California", the only English song that was requested. It is worth noting that Hotel California (加州旅馆) is insanely popular in China, the entire audience sang along while they played it. After Hotel California, they proceeded to take requests only on the condition that you come up and sing instead of them. The people who came up to sing were, surprisingly, quite good. Meanwhile, my friend still wanted them to play my song, so while a guest singer is singing she goes up to the lead singer (the guy she knows from the train) and asks him to play the song for me. He sees that I am a foreigner, and laughs and decides it will be the next song.

This is where things took a turn.

The being the only white person came back to bite me at this stage. He prefaced the next song with, "This is for our foreign friend here tonight, we are glad he came out to hear us. This is 月亮代表我的心, and he is going to come sing it with me." I did a double and triple take and decided I could not handle this. Backing out was not, however, an option. I went up and told him I only knew the chorus, not the verses in between. He told me no problem, we'd just do the chorus, he'd sing a verse, then I'd do the closing chorus. The 'quick' version felt anything but quick though. I started the chorus with him, and then he dropped out leaving me singing alone in front of shocked Chinese people. They didn't think I actually knew the song apparently, and didn't know how to react. After I finished the chorus there was insane applause as he started the verse, and then as the applause calmed down he urged me to finish the verse with him. I proceeded then to kinda make noises to go along with the tune, but I really had no idea what the words were. This part, for me, was extremely embarrassing. The crowd didn't seem to mind though, because as soon as I got to the chorus they erupted again. After I finished singing there was a good amount of applause, and I apologized into the microphone for only knowing the chorus and not the verses. Hearing me SPEAK Chinese and not just sing a memorized song made them even more crazy. The song after was the last song, and so I got to leave before too many people came up to swarm me with attention.

And that was my night in China.