KTV!

Today I lost my KTV virginity! The beautiful, young NSLI-Y students (4 of us for the Kaohsiung year) left campus during lunch with our tutors, Taiwanese college students majoring in “Applied Chinese.”  On a normal summer school day, we have a three-hour class in the morning and a two-hour tutoring session after lunch. Today, however, we just had morning class at Wenzao. Our 5-person class (4 NSLIY plus our awesome Resident Director) ranges from people who started Chinese last week to Abby, our RD, who lived in Beijing for a year.

 Taking the bus from school to a nearby shopping district in Kaohsiung, the 2nd largest city in Taiwan, my 朋友們 (friends) and I were especially hungry after a three hours of Chinese. If you’ve ever been in school, you may be aware of how long a 70 minute class can feel, but three hours (especially after second semester senior year and summer) is tough. Our day got dramatically better when we saw the American staple by KTV.

WOOOHOOOOOO!!!!! With the help of a picture menu, I ordered a shrimp sandwich, French fries, and a carbonated sweet tea. Our tutors then led us next door: KTV. With two floors and a marble staircase to get to the second, an attendant brought us to a private room. Filled with “Happy Birthday” decorations and a giant projector screen for lyrics and music videos, our tutors handed us microphones and started Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance”. Our initial reservations didn’t last long and by the time we got to our second song (“This Love”, Maroon 5), I wasn’t thinking about my terrible voice anymore. After our opening act, our group fell into a rhythm of a few Chinese songs and then “Sweet Home Alabama” or “(insert Britney Spears song)” or Fergie’s “My Humps”. 

Chinese songs that we like include:

 
Dubuqi wodezhongwen buhao (sorry, my chinese is bad) (our theme song)

Actually a Korean song (kpop)

Chinese version of bopeep 
Kobe Bryant and Jay Chou

Happy Breakup Song (jubbie's recommendation)

Zhong Guo Hua (S.H.E's song about learning Chinese, rap)
Ben's Favorite
Chinese Song
Other Song in Chinese

Four hours later, our time expired. Our room’s rental only cost 4 US dollars a person, including free bottled water, popcorn, animal crackers, and a bathroom with toilet paper (soap not included).

 

       Sample of Music Selection:

Karaoke is huge in Asia.  

                                                         Crazy Americans at KTV

Another cultural difference is cram schools. Testing is really, really important here. The “Basic Competence Test” can determine what high school a student can attend; the “Joint College Entrance Examination” helps determine where students go to college. Because so much weight is put on testing, most students take extra classes outside of school to prepare for these tests that can hugely affect their lives.

 In Kaohsiung, you can find “Joy English”, “Global Village Organization”, “Study Bank” (an online cram school), “Plus”, “Go 100”, and “Shine” among others. Some of these are chain cram schools, but there are also a lot of private cram schools that haven’t been “franchised”. There’s an enormous demand for these business because Asian families place such a huge value on education. My host sister says that often normal school doesn’t properly prepare students for the best high schools.

If your peer is going to cram school, but your not, your less competitive with them, and you’re also less likely to get into the best high schools and then colleges. Because of this, the majority of students go to cram school if their family can afford it. The wealthiest families hire private tutors for their children or send them abroad to improve their English.

        It’s interesting how this differs from 美國（USA). Jubbie is really lucky, because she’s a Wenzao. Wenzao is unique in that students have more extracurricular options than Taiwan’s normal educational route (for example Jubbie belly dances). Wenzao offers girls’ cheerleading, soccer, and basketball, but girls here don't play sports nearly as much as girls back home. In our NSLI-Y group, Nora and I both played soccer four years. My high school (with less than 200 girls to field teams with) offered women’s cross country, soccer, volleyball, bowling, basketball, swimming, softball, cheerleading, ultimate frisbee, track and field, hockey (if you wanted to join the men’s team), and LAX. Laxlaxlaxlaxlaxlaxlaxlax…..

        These days, I’m still recovering from my ACL surgery and unable to run/play real sports. I’m keeping up with my leg exercises (holler at Vanderbilt orthopedic) and making progress at a snail’s pace. (I’d like to run in the Boulevard Bolt of 2012.)

Thankfully, I can dance, so Jubbie is teaching me to 跳肚皮舞（belly dance）! Wenzao has tryouts with cuts (oh no!). During our first lesson, Jubbie videotaped me. She said she videotaped her friend the first time she belly danced. The friend had to buy Jubbie Starbucks in exchange for deleting the video; I now owe Jubbie Starbucks.

P.S. & XOXOXO: 美國朋友！ American friend(s and family)! Please send me postcards!!! If you write me, I will respond and bring you Taiwanese presents!!! Let me know if you need my address =)