Birthday Celebrations Chinese Style

Chinese beer is very weak. At 3.1%, it takes a few to have any effect on us. But this also means it takes a lot to get any sort of a hangover, a fact we were grateful for as we groggily arose the morning after our card-playing shenanigans the previous night. I was just about able for the Shanghai Museum, which was excellent, taking me most of the day to explore (John and Gearoid were waiting for me outside for over an hour).

Seeing as it was close by, we decided to go for a stroll down the French concession, with examples of colonial architecture that would become a familiar sight in Vietnam and Laos. It was mostly shops, that were well out of our price range, so we found a cheap restaurant and returned to the hostel for a (relatively) quiet night in preparation for Gearoid’s birthday the following day.



I slept in extra-late the next day, and made my way downstairs to find that the birthday celebrations had already begun without me. John and Gearoid, along with Kaisa (Finnish) and Fred (German) (you’ll be hearing those names a lot on this blog), were playing bullshit again. I (Irish) joined, then Dan and Jonas joined (Aussies), then Risto (Finnish) joined, then Leanne (English) joined. All these people just happened to be staying in the hostel.

A marathon bullshit session ensued. The only break we had was for dinner at a nearby restaurant - the nine of us were given a room to ourselves with a round table. Whether that was to protect the other diners or not is open to debate. The scene of grown men crying after the chili-eating contest suggests it was the right decision (to this day my mouth has never experienced anything that hot). Back to the hostel we stumbled for more card/drink shenanigans. We strictly adhered to the rules of the game, so you can imagine what state the birthday boy was in. He wanted to stay there for the night, but we were having none of it. We were gonna go out and celebrate, Chinese style.

We had seen signs for KTV absolutely everywhere in China. We eventually learned that it’s karaoke, and is China’s national pastime. What better way to make Gearoid’s birthday special for him than forcing him up in front of a small crowd and making him sing?

Well, it wasn’t quite like that. We arrived at the KTV building thinking it was a four-star hotel. I wondered into the lobby area, and confirmed that it was our intended destination. Somehow it took ten minutes of confused interchanges between staff in Chinese and celebrators in drunken English to make progress past the lobby. A porter took us into a lift, and we were brought to the fourth floor, where I was amazed to see a maze of halls lined with doorways, behind each one a room with the sound of unpleasant vocal warbling coming from within.



I think it was this small level of privacy (and lots and lots of alcohol) that lowered everyone’s level of inhibition - no-one held back on the singing front. There were solos, duets, and whole choirs. I’m sure we were the loudest in the whole building. We were also quite possibly the last to leave - dawn had already come and gone when we re-emerged out into the Shanghai street.



I believe it was good to experience this important aspect of Chinese culture. Without doubt, one of the best nights out of the whole trip. Gearoid’s birthday next year has a lot to live up to.