Last night, after spending the day at a conference at my university (Xiamen University of Technology; 厦门理工学院), I attended a dinner banquet at nearby Jimei University. The food was good, the wine was flowing freely, and (as always at any serious party in China) karaoke singing ruled the stage.
A fellow foreign teacher persuaded a few of the rest of us to sing The Beatles' Hey Jude. Fortunately, it was at the end of the evening when most of the audience had already left and my contribution was basically limited to background vocals - "na na na nana na na, nana na na, hey jude." The remaining Chinese audience loved us so I guess that means truly meaningful lyrics such as "na na na" translates well regardless of language and cultural differences.
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| The Xiamen Beatles |
Foreigners just can't compete with the Chinese though when it comes to karaoke. We were treated to an eclectic variety of performances including Chinese classics, Beijing opera and even some English pop songs by eager to sing Chinese colleagues. The finale of the evening was a rousing rendition of John Denver's Take Me Home Country Roads. For some reason, Chinese people love John Denver, maybe because was one of the first popular Western singers to tour China in 1993, only about a decade after China began opening up and allowing Western music and other influences. Denver's songs were apparently considered non-threatening, even by traditionally conservative Chinese standards. Of course, the younger generation of Chinese tends to prefer Lady Gaga, but fortunately I didn't have to listen to any karaoke covers of Gaga's Poker Face or Bad Romance.
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| Long Live Chairman Mao and John Denver in China! |
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