Singing and KTV

Singing is really big in China. I often see people just walking around singing a tune, sometimes they will have a cd/mp3 player with a speaker on it that's blaring for all to hear and they sing along. And it's rare to see someone who is shy to sing. I've often asked students in my class to sing a song, and they do it. It's interesting that in this culture where many people seem shy, they are not shy about singing. It's been explained to me that perhaps it's because they are shy that they love to sing: they are shy to express their feelings by saying exactly what they think so instead they sing a song that matches what they feel. And very many of them sing amazingly well.

KTV

Consequently, of course karaoke is very big here. There are numerous karaoke places, generally they are called KTV (I think it's because the very first company that invented the karaoke machine was called that?), but they are way cooler than in the states. Depending on how many people you have with you, you get a small, medium or large room for just your friends which will have one or more couches and tables with a big TV and a karaoke machine and 2-3 microphones. The waiters will drop by occasionally to get you snacks or more drinks. It's a great system b/c even people like me who can't sing at all don't worry about it and do it since you are in your own room among friends. The cost to rent a small room, which is right for about 4-5 people, ranges from 20 yuan an hour ($3) to 200 yuan an hour, depending on whether you want a trashy place in the suburbs or an amazing clean place downtown with strobe lights and lasers and flat panel huge tv and they bring you lots of cool fruit and food and give you your own pretty KTV girl to work the machine for you and who can sing really well also. Though if you go for the nice KTV with a pretty girl route you gotta be nice to her. If the men get too rowdy and grab the girl too much, she will leave and the management will swap her for a KTV boy which is not as cool; it's always embarassing if you see someone's room with a KTV boy cause you know someone's been behaving badly. But all in all KTV is great fun. Everyone seems to love it. Students go to it, businessmen take their clients to it, a boy and a girl will go on a date there and get their little private room, etc. I put up a few stock pictures of some really nice KTV rooms.