KTV (Karaoke)

This week proved a little challenging because I somehow woke up with an ear infection Thursday morning. I’ve only had an ear infection once before when I was taking the ACT my senior year of high school (and that score actually turned out really well) so I didn’t think much of it at first.

I really forgot how much they hurt. All the time.

Thankfully I had a little angel who came to my rescue and her name was Minnie. I told her about my problem and she immediately offered to bring me medicine to my apartment right away. On Friday after my classes she went with me to the pharmacy to get more medicine, took me to lunch, and walked me home. I feel so incredibly blessed to have such a dear Chinese friend who helps translate Chinese for me at the stores. Being sick in a different country is never fun, but Minnie made the experience so much better for me because of her kindness and generosity.

Friday was also great because of my students. I was a little unexcited about going to class just because I couldn’t hear anything out of my right ear and it hurt really badly, but my Class 1 students were so awesome! They were really engaged with my lesson about university life in America, asking me questions and starting a really good discussion about the differences between Chinese and American schools. Normally I have to prod them to answer in class, but they were much more open Friday.

I had a lovely Saturday spent resting, and then Sunday we tried KTV for the first time. KTV is HUGE in China! It’s what they call karaoke here, and it’s super popular for people to do. It works a little differently here though. You rent a room for you and your friends instead of singing in an open room or bar like in the U.S. The room has big screen TVs, loud speakers, flashing lights, and a computer that has thousands of songs.

We went to an afternoon session with Minnie because it was only 37 RMB for the room (which is like $1 per person! It gets more expensive for the night hours). It was so fun finding the American songs we knew and just singing for several hours!

The next week was also really great. Brittany, Lauren, Drew and I made spaghetti for dinner (Lauren found marinara sauce finally at a store) and it was the BOMB. (And my ear infection was healed by Monday, praises)

Our teacher students invited us out for more KTV the next Friday. We went to a different place and they bought us these delicious fruit trays and snacks! It was so fun seeing them sing more Chinese songs. They picked “My Heart Will Go On” as our first song to sing…Chinese people really love Titanic and think we do too hahaha.

After KTV they treated us to dinner at the same restaurant we went to our first night in China. They let us decide on the dishes we liked and then ordered even more – we had so much food! They encouraged us to try the papaya soup and green bean juice and fish and we had a great conversation about Chinese and English words.

Saturday night we went to Pizza Hut to try out their version of our American pizza. We got a large Supreme and a large Hawaiian pizza and 10 out of 10 I would definitely go back.