Karaoke (卡拉OK) ~(o0o)~i....

Today I´ve decided to ramble on karaoke. That 'cause last month we went to a restaurant and right after we went to a very small and traditional place full of karaoke rooms and extremely cheap, which made my voice louder and happier in the singing. :)

Karaoke in the west is not as famous as here in Asia. Not even close. It comes originally from Japan, actually it was regarded as a hobby in japanese territories. This word turned out to be globalized, in japanese characters would consist of 空 (reads KARA) and オーケストラ(reads OKKESUTORA). 

                                                        Me preparing to "sing" 做你的爱人

Here in China it´s no doubt the happy hour choice for almost all the locals. I dislike generalizations, but they often go singing with their families, close friends or acquaintances. I can tell from my experience here. I´ve already gone singing for at least 8 times or so. I hardly ever sang, wasn´t quite used to it, but the thing is that here they do tend to choose Karaoke, be that before a dinner or a lunch, between them or at the very end of the day. They just do. Some do it for fun, but some don´t, they even get the angriest one on Earth when their intonation goes down the drain. Singing in chinese is another challenge, remembering all the tones, what the characters mean and keeping up the rhythm is somewhat impossible to me by now.

You can find songs in corean, japanese and chinese, but English songs are not many and randomly selected, even Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson were missing!

Anyway, to me it doesn´t play an important role cuz I don´t need a sip of alcohol to sing out of tone. That I can do effortlessly. >(*0*)>

Beijing and the Great Wall (北京长城)

Beijing is as beautiful and multicultural as I had pictured it. It´s such a magical and historical place and it´s really admiring the fact that even nowadays after such a long time we can still get the chance to see all of those places with our own eyes. The chinese woman sitting beside me said that she could hear 7 different dialects and that some of them she couldn´t understand, it was chinese though. The trip took 24 hours on a train full of passangers from all over Asia. The train I took was not so comfortable, but makes no sense to complain 'cause if I wanted comfort I should´ve chosen the 1st class instead...! There were six beds in each room, 3 at both sides. I was given the last one, up in the sky, and had to spend 24 hours still just like a mummy.

The Great Wall was a dream of mine I had to fulfill. It´s quite far from the city and it´s tiring, but it´s worth all the effort. As the sign at the entrance says: "One who hasn´t walked the Great Wall, is not a real man yet." Well, maybe this is just to encourage you, in case you are already expecting to walk miles...'cause you really do. :)

You feel a sense of renewal in every way by the end of the Wall. The view of the mountains around and the nature makes this place blessed. I also liked some other places, like the Gugong 故宫, the 天安门 square and the 颐和园 Summer Palace. Each one of them has its peculiarity and beauty.

The city center and part of its architecture reminds me of Europe, but of course with the asian modernity touch. I was supposed to stay there for 5 days, but ended up adding up 2 more days. 


There´s also a famous street in the evening known as "Wangfujing". There you can find many different and delicious snacks and foods, although some of them I didn´t dare to try.

 

Arriving at my new "home" in Shenzhen (深圳)

Well well well... my arrival in Shenzhen was amazingly perfect. I was extremely excited, except for the fact that I was way too tired to think and looking forward to getting some sleep the soonest I could. Anyway, on the way home some things went on, which might be worth sharing and which I listed right below. :)

Arrival


My arrival was okay. As chineses from Mainland China cannot cross the borders to Macau without a Visa (yeah, to me it sounded strange when I first heard it as well), they couldn´t wait for me, which was a little aggravating by the moment I had to apply for the visa in the border, but after a couple of hours standing at the long and endless "line", I managed to. Arriving in Zhuhai, the hostfamily´s friend who picked me up and I took a bus to the train station in Shenzhen... and when we got off, the family was waiting for me. (detail is, I arrived after 2am). They were all very nice and we introduced ourselves briefly to each other. Later on, summarizing the whole thing, I hibernated on their car heading home, couldn´t help it. Even overheard some laughters coming from the front seat. I could barely understand chinese at that time, but I could catch a "Yes, he is quite tired." Well, at least that was what I thought they had said and that´s how I remember it now.

 

                         First impression

My first day literally in China was eye-opening. All relatives from the chinese family were there and we went to a restaurant to have dinner together. First thing I found out was that the city was so large and crowded than in anywhere else I had been before. I was actually expecting to see many villages and more traditional things, but instead, I ran across many skyscrapers with asian-style screens and neon signs broadcasting all kinds of advertisement and a mixture of traditional and simplified chinese characters. In the afternoon I walked around the city and tried some market dishes around by myself.

      

Shenzhen is a southern chinese city and a next-door neighbor from Hong Kong (香港), "land of Jackie Chan". Like any other big city, it´s inevitably crowded, noisy and chaotic in rush hours. Despite its development and timing, there are also villages and typical/traditional streets with differents dialects in every corner due to the migration of chineses either from the countryside or from other regions in search of jobs. I believe that the main chinese here is the 普通话 (mandarin), although I´ve heard some speaking the 广东话 (cantonese) and a bunch of other dialects. 

:)

Arrival in Macau (澳門)

~中国 ~
My arrival in China was fine, rather distressing to be sincere. I remember that during the flight, I coudn´t sleep at all due to anxiety. Flying to China had always been one of my innermost dreams since I was a kid and unaware of the grandiosity of the culture, chinese songs and movies have always fascinated me though. As it was certainly my dream-come-true trip, I barely could sleep during the flight. Not sure what the reason for that was. As a matter of fact, I couldn´t spend too much time wondering about what my first steps into the Shanghai airport as well as the waiting for the connection to Macau would be like. The only thing I knew about Macau was that there were signs in portuguese (my mother tongue) everywhere, as it was once (for those who don´t know) colonized by Portugal in the 16th century.

The 3 waiting hours in Shanghai turned into one million years. But just the fact of overhearing somebody using the phone booth and speaking普通话(Mandarin), made me abandon my anxiety and brought me such a feeling of contentment to be given the opportunity to hear it for the very first time, yet unexpectedly. It really did. It took me back to about a decade ago, when I used to listen to my japanese grandparents playing asian instruments or practicing and hanging the characters all over the house to bring prosperity, health or peace. My next move would be then going buy some beverages and snacks 'cause I was starving to death. Actually there were more foreigners than I was expecting to see, even though I had read that Shanghai was one of the most international cities along the country, and I found out it really is. I didn´t do anything in particular there, so let´s skip here.

The second flight was filled with chinese people, most of them apparently locals going to Macau and a few other people from nearby asian countries. I sat beside an old japanese couple and we had the chance to talk for a while. Nothing really happened on that 2-hour-flight, not that I remember and besides, I ended up falling asleep as I couldn´t sleep on the first flight whatsoever. I woke up minutes before the landing, which was being announced.

                         Arrival in Macau 

After half-day bouncing from one airport to the other, I finally arrived in the so-called "Las Vegas of China" city. It was not as hot as in Shanghai, actually was even a bit too cold and cloudy. The airport is rather small, same for the city itself, although it has a bunch of beautiful sceneries and is worth visiting. Problem was... my camera was not with me. I had forgotten it inside my biggest and heaviest luggage and only God knew where exactly it was. It could be inside one of the packs or maybe around clothes to protect it from cracking. I didn´t have much time to "seize the day" in Macau because I was supposed to go to Zhuhai in order to attempt to get the visa so that I could go to the Mainland later on. Plus, it was already noon and my hostfamily was already waiting for me at the other side of the border. Well, not to say that I didn´t, I did walk around the city and observed it for a little while. Again some japaneses popped up and I helped them find their way to the hotel. I had never seen so many people huddled and it was like this almost every single where. At first that wasn´t a nice impression and indeed made me really nervous. Thought to myself "that´s a nice greeting for a newcomer." Another thing I had noticed was that people didn´t take the effort to line up and make the thing a bit more organized, but did totally the contrary. There was I, standing before a 200-people-line with 2 luggages and my passport. Anyway, the visa procedure went fine and I was able to cross the border and enter the Mainland!