"Find your Feeling."

Given the remarkable regularity of my presence in KTV, an entertaining story was bound to emerge from the neon haze sooner or later. My journey began in a high caliber establishment, complete with artificial gold and marble adornments, and a three person team of KTV employees who cater to your every need, ensuring an abundant flow of liquor and watermelon. Along with a handful of other lao wai’s, I was invited to this elaborate party, hosted by some local Chinese VIP’s. Being a rare commodity in these parts, foreigners often find themselves invited to gatherings full of people they’ve never met, either as a hospitable gesture, or to be paraded around as a status symbol. In this case, it seemed that good old fashioned Chinese hospitality was the only motivating factor.

The host of the function was a local bank president, who was looking distantly at sobriety in his rear view mirror when we arrived. Within an hour, everybody else was headed in the same direction, as the Chinese are not shy about peer pressuring any and everyone into drinking excessive amounts of alcohol at an unreasonable pace. Before the clock strikes ten, Mr. CEO enters a vicious cycle of spilling drinks on the table, laying his head in his wife’s lap, and singing his drunken heart out, in no particular order. As the night finds its way to a close, the crowd gives up on singing and dances to techno instrumentals instead. While feasting on watermelon and duck necks, casually enjoying the show from the comfort of a plush couch, I’m invited onto the makeshift dance floor. The combination of the “When In China, or W.I.C.” philosophy and the open bar, result in the fateful decision to leave the safety of the sofa and hit the Chinese with a sample of life in the Bay Area. To an unlikely soundtrack, with an unusually fast tempo, a brief introduction to hyphy ensues. (The cauldron of emotions inspired by the fact that this word has a wikipedia page could be the topic of a lengthy blog, but back to the story). Soon after this outburst, I’m approached by the youngest member of the party, a high school student named Susan. She insists that I teach her “my moves,” despite my insistence that “moves” are not something I posses in my repertoire. I then proceed to simultaneously instruct her and her father how to do whatever it was that I was doing into some ungodly hour of the night. This all seemed like innocent fun at the time, but I would soon learn that the story was far from over.

The following afternoon, I was awoken on my bamboo mattress by the annoying chirp of my cell phone. In a state of delirium, I flipped it open to find a message from Susan, which read as follows;

“Hi gino- my headmaster (principal) wants me to give a hip hop dance performance at my school. Can you help me? SOS!!”

My initial response is, “Who in their right mind would ask me to do such a thing?” I mentally rewind to the events of the previous evening and realize why such a seemingly random request is being made. My imagination floods my consciousness with nightmarish images of being booed off the stage by an unruly mob of Chinese high school kids. Despite every rational bone in my body attempting to avoid the situation, I agree to participate, not knowing exactly what this will entail.

Following our verbal agreement, a week passes, during which time I assume that she has come to her senses and found someone more qualified for the job, but come Friday she’s eagerly requesting a choreography lesson. Still in disbelief as to how this situation even came about, I agree based on the “W.I.C.” principle, and agree to “help” her. All along, I’m hoping to Buddha that there are no kids at her school who actually know how to dance, otherwise whatever sham of a production I lead her into will be exposed as a fraud.

Our initial practice takes place in her father’s home office, where I struggle to mimic whatever I was doing in the realm of KTV, with its nightclub lighting and free flowing whiskey. Fortunately, I’m informed that my presence will not be requested on stage, and my services are confined to choreography, which it turns out is much more difficult than dancing. The only major progress of day one occurs when I am given free reign to choose the music for the performance. First, I attempt to convince her that she should reenact a routine from the break dancing flick “Breakin and Enterin,” but she specifically says “no popping.” After this dream was shattered, the natural choice was “Tell me when to go.” If you haven’t had the fortune of being exposed to this song or phrase, it’s basically a rhetorical question asking “When should I go (dumb)?,” with the assumed response being immediately. Once the soundtrack is settled, I manage to teach her a few so called moves before her mother makes us dinner, and lesson one is complete.

Another week passes, filled with the same ambivalent feelings as the first, but by Sunday, another meeting is arranged. This time we rendezvous in a place I had previously attempted to avoid at all costs, KFC. So, here I find myself on a Sunday afternoon, surrounded by a group of high school kids in KFC, in China. Luckily practice is destined to be outdoors, so we head to a park overlooking the river that snakes its way though Huzhou. This aquatic thoroughfare is constantly traversed by a barrage of barges, which are either filled to capacity with raw natural materials heading East to Shanghai, or empty and heading West for a refill.

To this backdrop, ‘the crew’ displays their routine, which is in serious need of some polishing. Susan is the only one who knows what she’s doing and puts all the other kids to shame. The remaining misfits look like they’re having trouble just walking in a straight line with their awkward, pubescent coordination. Susan explains, “They don’t know how to find their feeling.” Basically, they’re as stiff as my bamboo mattress and don’t seem intent on breaking out of their current state. An hour passes with “tell me when to go” on repeat, becoming permanently embedded in my psyche, which I’m sure will have some kind of negative impact on my sanity somewhere down the line. By the end of the session they’ve strung together something resembling a routine, but they’re far from being ready to display themselves in front of their peers. Here’s the shui guo (fruit) of their labor at this point.

Unfortunately, this is where the visual evidence of the story terminates. Teaching obligations prevented me from witnessing the final product, but according to Susan, the rest of the group members failed to ever “find their feeling,” which was blatantly obvious to the crowd. Luckily, Susan put on a quality individual performance, which met rave reviews, and the boys didn’t mind being laughed at. They actually requested that the crew stay intact and keep performing, which could one day result in a battle, should another crew spring up from the Huzhou underground and challenge their authority. In the end, despite all the anxiety that was inflicted upon me for being involved in this project, it was satisfying to see Susan succeed in isolation, while attempting to pump some life into the listless limbs of her peers. More than anything this tale is just another indicator of life in China. It is completely unpredictable, which is why you can’t be surprised when you suddenly go from singing love ballads with a bank president to choreographing a hip hop dance routine for a group of high school students. Just another day in tomorrowland.