KTV Girl/Boy Culture
The Chinese are crazy about KTV. Most Chinese I know adore karaoke and can spend hours at KTV with their friends singing, drinking and snacking until the wee hours of the morning. When their not at KTV, they're at home practicing--mastering the art of belting out the latest pop song so they can wow their peers and work colleagues.
KTV in it of itself is a curious pastime to me and I can spend hours waxing philosophical about what attracts the Chinese to devoting so much time to this activity. The seedier side of KTV in China is what I and some of my acquaintances here refer to as "KTV girl culture." It's something that I'm sure many males doing business in China are familiar with--having pretty Chinese girls sit and drink with you while singing karaoke. These girls, dressed to the nines, usually have high alcohol tolerance, are masters at the dice game (popular drinking game here essentially "Bullshit"), sing well, and can give decent massages. And it's not rare that for an extra fee, these multi-talented girls can be taken home.
I've heard a lot about KTV girl culture and never really thought I'd have an opportunity to witness it firsthand. But when a taxi driver told me that Shanghai is all about "equal opportunity" and that these places existed for girls looking for the company of cute boys, I was determined to add this to my list of "only in China" experiences.
And last week that very wish was granted when a friend of mine was in town doing business and I and a few of my friends were invited to do just that--sing karaoke and have our respective escorts keep us company for the night.
The karaoke suite at these places are much swankier than your normal KTV room...plush couches, flatscreen televisions, an aqauarium, and a waitress attending each table pouring wine and bringing out fruit platters throughout the evening. The minimum for a suite was RMB 3000-4500 at the establishment we went to. The penultimate suite is RMB 5800, which was a gaudy suite with more comfortable furniture and a larger television screen. Just as you get comfortable, the circus begins..
The mama-san (as I hear people call her) is the den mother of the girls. She makes sure that the clients are happy addressing requests for alcohol, girls, food, etc. She marches in a line of girls, about 8 girls who are all donning evening gowns (which to me is just the silliest thing ever...I mean...I don't know of any guy who ideally wants to see pretty girls wearing body-covering clothing with ruffles and a lot of skirt...in fact, I think exactly the opposite would be preferred..they should have them march in the room in bikinis). The guys make their picks and if their not satisfied, the girls file out and new girls are brought in. Only, at this place, the mama-san would march the girls out, but half the girls would come back in, with a few new girls interspersed here and there. Our hosts and their friends were too drunk to notice the repetition.
As soon as the girls are chosen, there is no hesitation. They sit next to the guy who picked them out and begin the rubbing and the kissing and the cooing. They play drinking games with the men. They encourage their men to sing. They sing for the men. And this is how the night is spent.
I had to make a special request for a male escort. The mama-san was very accommodating, but she warned me that male escorts are more expensive than women. A woman escort in addition to the room minimum is about RMB300. A male? RMB500. There is absolutely no reason why a guy is worth more than a female by virtue of their gender alone and it's no exception in KTV.
She marched in 5 males all in their early 20s. The security in the club were better looking than these guys. And unlike their female counterparts, these guys were not donning their best in eveningwear (which may have upped their cuteness factor significantly--lord knows they could've used the extra points). They had good height, and were sporting haircuts typical of Chinese popstars (most of them with dyed hair no less), but that was pretty much all that they had going for them.
I was trying to be a good sport. It was already disappointing to start off with. I was definitely not paying for eye candy. I was still hopeful that I'd be entertained.
I couldn't have been more wrong. This boy? Should've been paying me.
I'm not sure what a KTV boy does, but I can tell you what this KTV boy did not do: he does not sing, he does not dance, he does not speak unless spoken to, he does not touch much less massage his clients. The only thing he did well was drink lots of alcohol that he did not pay for...and the only thing he offered to do was...
He offered to bite me. No, really. He said anywhere I wanted him to. This is what he offered me when I asked him to sing me a song.
Sigh. Only in China.
da
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E' la vecchia guardia e i suoi interventi sul darkside sono imprescindibili, affronta il lato oscuro del sesso estremo con l'approccio dostojeschiano dell'uomo che soffre, mitizza e somatizza.UN DEMONE
Now I lay me down to sleep,Pray the lord my soul to keep.And if I die before I wake pray the lord my soul to take.