Striking Karaoke Gold
In China people live and breathe karaoke. But it's not the loud, ridiculous karaoke you'd find at Sing Sing on B between 5th and 6th...and certainly no surprise visits by a male dancer in uniform. No, in my experience, karaoke with locals is a fairly sober event. Songs about heartache and general misery, voices so soft and sweet as to lull you to sleep, and bodies slumped wearily against the couch fill the room. Sometimes watermelon juice is served.
But wait....
Yesterday I was reunited with the Back Dorm Boys, two Chinese students thought (by me) to be the start of a karaoke revolution. THIS IS GREAT..... AND SO IS THIS!
acknowledgements
> For first introducing the I Want It That Way video to me years ago, I want to thank Ms. Handan, a graduate of Beijing University and now oral and written translator for the Shenzhen city government. Sometimes you can catch her on the local evening news. AND she has a great singing voice.
> Thanks to Eric from NBA Shanghai (marketing) for knowing what I was talking about and telling me their name in English!
additional sources
> http://blog.sina.com.cn/m/housheboy: Chinese site, lots of pictures. They seem to have won some sort of award. Can anyone fill me in on what the award is?
> http://twochineseboys.blogspot.com/: English site....they're looking for a translator!
1 comment:
The Back Dorm Boys won two awards, the Entertainment Award for "Best New Play Actors" jointly awarded by Beijing TV's Entertainment News Daily and Enlight TV production company, and the Best Podcast Award by Sina.com and Wenzhou based Aokang Footwear company.
Yes,the type of sleepish karaoke style you described can be found in any karaoke center, but you also have red-eyed pot-bellied middle-aged men singing off tune at the top of their voice and totally enjoying himself, or a much younger pack dancing, albeit remaining seated most of the times, cheering for the singer, with tambourines if provided, and contributing nice spontaneous back-up voice.
The various groups I've been doing karaoke with generally know the harm of long stretches of soft songs and would always punctuate the list with more stirring beats and songs for everyone to join.
So yes, karaoke is taken more seriously in a sense here than in the States (I don't really have a say here as I've never done it over there) and the show-off element is there. But at the end of day, it's still about having fun, enjoying oneself and making sure everyone in the booth is as well.Too little respect to other singers and too much mic time for yourself, which cuts fun for the whole group, means no invitation next time.
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