I was seated on a sofa, in a private booth. In front of me eight pretty girls were arrayed. The Big Boss, seated next to me, gestured toward the girls and said: “choose”.
I had just emerged from the toilet (private booth, private toilet) and a human meat market was not exactly what I had expected to find. The drinks were absurd
ly overpriced, and the minimum order for our considerably large booth was high. As there were only three of us (me, friend, Big Boss) I had been wondering why our KTV booth was so large; finally it made sense. Friend and I were not interested but Big Boss insisted (bringing in two additional sets of girls in an attempt to whet our appetite). Finally we gave up and let him pick for the three of us.
So what is KTV? When I had just arrived to China, I thought it was a TV station. As it turned out, I was quite off the mark. KTV is the common name in china for what we call “karaoke”, and it’s the number one pasttime in china. It is always done in private rooms, special for this purpose. Each room typically contains a television set, microphones and a computer system for picking songs and building playlists. Many places offer food and drink (most Chinese seem to believe singing is best done drunk) and some, as I discovered, also offer “companions”. These will chat with you, play drinking games with you, fawn over you and - if you cooperate - eventually go “all the way”. It’s hard to bring across just how big a part of the Chinese culture KTV is. A great amount of business deals are cemented in this manner, singing loudly over a bottle of whisky (and possibly a girl or two).
As KTV is so popular, it comes in all quality levels. The cheap ones will consist of spartan rooms and run-down equipment. The fancy ones will be expensively furnished and boast private bathrooms and personal attendants to care for you needs. Whatever you social class or income level is, there is a KTV for you: the phenomena crosses all social boundries in china.