KARAOKE is the new way to party!

So...my birthday party was the biggest surprise ever! I planned on just going out to eat with some friends at a nice, peaceful village in Sha Tin. If you know me, I don't like being the center of attention or having big birthday parties. Well, so much for being me!

I was on msn (we don't use this really - but the eastern countries do), and I was talking with all of my Chinese friends and a couple from Taiwan. They all knew it was my birthday - and they were telling me that it just so happened to be two other girls from Taiwan's birthday as well. All of these exchange students from Taiwan booked a party room at Neway Karaoke in Kowloon City Plaza. This is beyond what any westerner could imagine if they have never been to an Asian country. People here love karaoke. This is what they do for fun with friends. Now, I can see why - because a good time is surely possible!

15 of us showed up to this triple B-day party. It was such a great cultural experience, and not only that, I was able to celebrate my birthday in the best way that I've ever celebrated before. There was this huge mall, and on the top floor was this ginormous section specifically for karaoke parties. There was a never-ending hallway, like a hotel, of rooms. You walked down the hallway and heard people partying like crazy in each room - singing Chinese songs and some even attempting English songs (key word: attempting). Well, I and my other German and American friends at the party, also "attempted" Chinese songs. Yea, not possible, but 50% of the time we were singing songs we knew in English.

It was so much fun just singing horribly with everyone! We had 5 wireless microphones, and whoever knew the song that was chosen would take a mic and show off what they know. Believe it or not, I may have been one of the better singers there - but this isn't saying much! But the girls from Taiwan were something else! You could tell that they did karaoke a lot. They knew most of the songs and hit basically every note on key. This probably explains why people in HongKong are actually more fond of Taiwan Mandarin Chinese musicians. Many famous musicians come from Taiwan. One of the first songs in English was...the Backstreet Boys. I think the song was "Backstreet's Back...Alright!" Immediately, Andy, Max, Matthias, and myself took the mics and stood up in front of everyone

and passionately sung the whole song to the girls. It was hilarious, and completely embarassing -but it didn't matter! That is what is so cool about asian culture - humiliation isn't possible. People just show respect and have a good time. Well, at least as of now I haven't been humiliated...I better not speak too soon. Maybe I should change my views on humiliation here after living here more than a month! In addition to the music, there was an all you can eat buffet! That's right...this was heaven. For just 100HK (~25USD), we could have this amazing room with full projection screen, LCD on the other side, PS2, internet access, unlimited food and drinks, black leather couches, champaigne, and birthday cake! Pretty sweet deal. So with all of this fun to be had, we had so many songs to sing still! They have practically every song known to man to choose from. You name it, we sang it - seeing as we didn't end up leaving until 2:30 in the morning! I think we sang for at least 5 hours. These asians are all about some karaoke, let me tell ya!

The funniest part was by far the videos played for the English songs. You see, they don't have the actual videos for the songs, so they have the most random music videos with European people just walking around and doing ridiculous poses. It is beyond ridiculous! Not kidding at all. I can show you a photo, but please if you are bored youtube "KTV" English videos. You will surely know what I mean by ridiculous.

After a few hours of partying, the karaoke employees (better known as Butler's - the service was way too good) brought in the birthday cake! With one candle, and three peoples' birthday to sing for, we huddled around this small cake and sang the B-day song in Chinese and English! Very cool. The other two girls spoke Mandarin, but they both knew English very well. Happy Birthday to Tina, Pamela, and random white American Jon! This event wasn't intended for me and my friends, but did we liven up their party or what?! Without us it just wouldn't have been as fun for them, I'm sure. I brought a local friend from Hong Kong, Stephy, and a couple Mainland China friends Jessica and Camille, and also a friend from Kazahkstan named Kamila. So half of the crew came to celebrate, which was great. Probably the best birthday party ever for me, that I can recall.