karaoke

A couple of weeks back some friends from TJU invited us to karaoke. To be honest, I wasn’t completely thrilled to go but I’m very glad I did. I was completely surprised by it. The idea I had in mind of karaoke was one of those karaoke microphones you just plug in a TV to sing. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The place they took us to was really nice. They had lots of rooms most of which seemed to be full since Karaoke seems to be very popular among Chinese. The rooms had great audio and thankfully there was a good amount of songs in English. For some reason, anyone who sings using the mics in the room seems to have a really good voice; at least that’s the impression me and some of my friends got or maybe we just think we are worse singers than what we really are :D. We all had a great time singing both Chinese and English songs. Karaoke is definitely something you should try when in China!

One of the TJU students who went with us is one of the top karaoke singers in TJU. He sang one of the weirdest songs I’ve ever heard. It’s called 忐忑 which translates to mentally disturbed. The song is extremely hard to sing since it’s filled with so many musical twists and turns and there are no lyrics, just repeating sounds. What I found when searching for the lyrics was, #[a---o, a---o e, a se di, a se do, a se da ge di ge do, a se di, a se da ge do, ] x2 a----------- [a yi ya yi yo,] x2 a se di ge [dai, da ge dai, da ge dai, da ge da ge di ge dai, da ge dai, da ge do,] x2 # a yi ya yi yo---, Repeat # a yi ya yi yo--- [o- yi- yo- yi-] x2 a- yi- ya- yi- a- yi- ya- da ge [dai, da ge dai, da ge dai, da ge da ge di ge dai, da ge dai, da ge do,] x2 a yi ya yi yo---, [da yi yo yi da yi do yi] x2 a- er- yi- er- yo-, [da yi yo yi da yi do yi] x2 dai- dai- dai- dai do-, [dai dai dai dai] x6 dai dai do---, a--- a- e---, a yi ya yi yo---, a--- a--- a- yo---, a- a--------, a yi ya yi yo---, hei- yo-------, Repeat # a yi ya yi [dai, di ge dai, di ge dai, di ge di ge dai, dai, di ge dai, di ge do,] x8 dai, di ge dai, di ge dai, di ge di ge dai, dai, di ge dai, di ge dai, dig ge dai, dig ge dai, di ge di ge dai, dai, di ge dai, di ge dai, di ge do-, [a yi yo yi] x4 ha---, hai yo------, dai, di ge dai, di ge dai, di ge di ge dai, dai, di ge dai, di ge dai, di ge di ge di ge do---

so you can imagine how odd it is. Here’s a link to a video of the song:

忐忑