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By Root 1263 0

four parents, should they all be living. And the generation that is now approaching retirement is the generation least likely to have prospered from the changes that have taken place in China recently. Indeed, their formative years were spent being whipsawed by Mao in an era not particularly encouraging of 401(k) plans. So even with nearly a billion and a half people, China finds itself short of young people to take care of the elderly. As we left the park, a sign informed us that if we wanted to reenter the park, we would have to return to the East Gate. It was a one-way park. I thought about all the parents milling among the trees. Enter a father, and if you get lucky, leave as a father-in-law.

“So what you say? You want to go to karaoke now?” Meow Meow asked.

Karaoke? I didn’t want to go to karaoke. I would rather have major dental work done than engage in karaoke. Among the top ten bad things the Japanese have inflicted upon the rest of the world, karaoke ranks very high in my opinion. Possibly, my feelings about karaoke arise from the sad fact that I was born without the music gene. I listen to it. I like it. But I cannot produce it. I have tinkered with guitars and harmonicas and can manage to play nothing more than discordant noise. Nor can I sing. When I do, dogs cower, children cry, and everyone else looks upon me aghast as if I’ve just unleashed a deep, throaty, malodorous belch. I cannot even hum a tune. I can, however, whistle, and when I do my children plead for me to stop. A karaoke bar is, therefore, not my natural milieu.

“I can’t sing, Meow Meow. People whimper when they hear me sing.”

“I don’t believe you. I think you can sing. And you said you wanted to see how people in Beijing live. Karaoke very popular in China. Many businessmen relax with karaoke.”

I wasn’t entirely certain what Meow Meow meant by “relax.” There still remained an air of ambiguity about her. Perhaps she was a student. Perhaps she was a take-out girl. Perhaps she was both or neither. I wasn’t particularly concerned anymore. If my translator enjoyed getting dolled up and loitering outside hotel lobbies, who was I to question it? She was an agreeable companion. She spoke English. She was informative. And she was undoubtedly correct in pointing out the popularity of karaoke in Beijing. Every block seemed to have a building with a flashing, neon KTV sign. And so, despite my misgivings, I decided to engage in some pith-helmeted anthropological exploration of the karaoke phenomenon in Beijing.

I followed Meow Meow up a broken escalator to a landing where we were greeted by an attendant in a white shirt and a black vest.

“Give him 50 kuai,” Meow Meow instructed me, using the local vernacular for yuan. “Better service.” We followed him as he led us through a hallway, past a warren of rooms that contained the warbling customers of this karaoke emporium, until he led us to a room with a long cushioned coach facing a television screen. “What do you drink in America?” Meow Meow asked. “Whiskey? Cognac?”

“Usually just beer or wine,” I said.

“You want to try Chinese wine?”

“Sure,” I said.

I had expected a glass, but the attendant returned with a full bottle of what the label informed me was Great Wall Wine, which he proceeded to pour into a decanter full of ice.

“What you think?” Meow Meow asked.

“I’ve never had red wine that’s quite so…icy.”

“Wine is very new in China. People are not sure how to drink it.”

“I kind of got that impression.”

Meow Meow turned to the karaoke machine. “I will sing for you,” she said, choosing a love ballad. She picked up the microphone, and as the words appeared upon the screen, she proceeded to sing…very well, as it turned out.

“That was very nice, Meow Meow,” I told her. “But is this really what people do in Beijing for entertainment, sing to each other?”

“They make relationships at karaoke.”

Again with the ambiguity.

“You have wife?” Meow Meow suddenly asked me.

“Yes, I’m married. Very happily married. Excellent marriage. Great marriage,” I told her.

“You have picture?”

I showed her a picture