It's KTV Night Again

You wouldn't think hot pot is the perfect summer meal. The name tells you you'll be sweating in a warm restaurant, watching old men take off their shirts to cool off. And you know there's a giant pot involved, but you're not sure how if you've never been there. By the time you leave, you can't tell if you have meat sweats or heat sweats.

But when you're out with hot pot enthusiasts, any day is perfect for it. And when those hot pot enthusiasts are KTV freaks, then you know it's going to be a hell of a night.

We do KTV for every life event. When we have visiting family, we do KTV. Do you have a new boyfriend/girlfriend? The new lover gets the KTV experience with your friends. Did you get promoted at your job? KTV. I could keep going, but I think you get the picture by now.

I walk into our usual restaurant. By now the wait staff recognizes me and smiles brightly. We're here at least once a month, so they pay extra attention to us so we keep coming back. I'm pretty sure Jake got the phone number of the last girl who served us a few months ago. We haven't seen her since. Jake never talks about her either, so I'm guessing things went pretty bad.

Jake, Ellis, Darcy, and a new girl sat at the table. They saw me and cheered. The hot pot place is mostly Chinese people. Every time we so much as breathe slightly louder, the locals watch us for a few moments like we're some new exotic animal. I'm not sure what surprises them more: that there's foreigners in their restaurant, or that we're not from the same country. Sometimes, I wonder if it's a coincidence there's a statue of a bull next to our table.

I sat down as I Darcy tells the new girl to never drink Coke when eating hot pot. I smirk, remembering her telling me the same thing in my hot pot experience. From the new girl's wide-eyed confused look, I could tell she struggled to understand Darcy's Australian accent.

"Ariel! This girl's from Canada, just like you!" Ellis greets.

"I'm from Michigan, not Canada!" I reply.

"You're from the Upper Penninsula," Jake says, his Southern drawl making him sound like he's growling. "That's pretty much Canada in our book."

"We like our guns too much to be a leaf," I wave off his comment. The girl blinks her dark eyes and visibly relaxes. She looks young, younger than me; she can't be more than twenty-five. She has the eager energy of someone who's freshly moved here and hasn't had her soul sucked out by her company yet.

I stopped trying to make time lines for when people leave China long ago. I expected Jake to leave after six months when I met him, but he's stayed here as long as I have. He always said he has nothing to go back to, like me.

"Is Rome coming over?" I ask.

"After class," Ellis answers. "They called him in on his day off, and he's pissed. All he wants to do now is angry-drink. He just sent me a WeChat saying start ordering what you want. He'll eat whatever."

"Does that mean we can finally do duck blood?" I jokingly ask.

"Sounds like another Jake and the server situation to me," Darcy jokes. Jake grunts and takes a drink of his beer. Another server comes by, and Dary orders more beer and plum juice to go around. Ellis and Darcy order more food in Chinese. I understand a little bit of what they're ordering. They talk way too fast for me to figure it out.

"So, how long have you been in China?" the new girl asks. I blink, surprised. She looked so timid when I first saw her. I didn't expect such confidence in her voice.

"Going on three years now," I answer. "I get to go home for the Christmas for the first time this year."

"That's cool," the girl says. "I'm Rachel, Darcy's new coworker."

"Oh, God! I'm an asshole," I hear Darcy say, "I forgot to introduce you guys!"

"It's okay, Darcy," Rachel says reassuringly.

"No, it's not!" Darcy snaps. "Ariel, this is Rachel. Rachel, this is Ariel. Rachel started teaching at the school a week ago."

I sip my plum juice as I listen to Darcy and Rachel talk about work. Ellis makes another joke about Jake and the server, and I notice Jake take another drink. They're not little sips of beer. He's nearly downing the whole bottle in one gulp.

Darcy and Ellis start clearing the table for the approaching server. They make room for her to put the large bowl she's carrying in the middle of the table. Then she fumbles around the side of the table until we see a burner come on.

In every hot pot restaurant, there is a burner in the middle of the table. We pick our broth and what food we want. All of the food comes out raw. When the broth boils, we put the food in and watch it cook. Once it's done, we eat.

The best part is the broth at the end. You know it's a good batch of hot pot when you scoop the broth at the end and drink it. Some people don't do this. I'm not sure if you're supposed to or not, but it's my favorite part of the hot pot. When all of the flavors from the meats, veggies, and noodles mix together, the broth tastes amazing.

As the waitress turns on the burner at our table, I see Rome come in, and my heart skips a beat. He gives me a little smile when he sees me and sits between Jake and me. I can tell from the sweat on his forehead that it hasn't cooled off outside.

"Work called you in again, huh?" I say.

"They keep hiring all these runners!" he says, "None of these newbies ever left their parent's house before, and they're over here thinking jumping into a new country's a great idea! Don't get me wrong, it is, but at least take some babysteps first! This guy flipped out over a hamburger at McDonald's on Thursday, and we haven't seen him since. So they call me."

The waitress comes back with plates full of raw meat. She explains one is pork, another is beef, and antoher is lamb. She puts the meat in for us. Another servers drops off potatoes and a basket full of leafy greens and "see you tomorrow" mushrooms. I think you can figure out why they're called "SEe you tomorrow" mushrooms.

The last server comes by dropping off corn, sweet potatoes, and a white vegetable with holes in it. Rome tells me later it's lotus root. It's Rachel's first time eating hot pot, so it's a tame hot pot dinner tonight.

Ellis and Jake excuse themselves to go to the sauce bar. Beijing hot pot has a buffet set-up for their sauces. When you take whatever you want out of the pot, you dip it in whatever sauce you make then eat it. Most people here do the sesame sauce. I like to add garlic and a little spicy sauce to mine. The sesame stuff tastes too much like over-sweetened peanut butter for me to like. When the two guys come back, they have their sauces, and they have plates full of watermelon and cherry tomatoes for us.

"So, something funny I noticed, "I whisper to Rome when Jake and Ellis get more watermelon. "Every time someone mentions the waitress whose number Jake somehow got, he sucks down his beer."

Rome's dark eyes study Jake as he talks to Rachel. The girl seems charmed by Jake's Southern drawl. Rome and I exchange looks.

"Game on," he says finally. "How long till he gets that girl?"

"If she makes it a year, they'll date in six months," I say.

Another server places noodles on the table. Rome gets in on the mention the server game Ellis plays, and Jake is about four beers in before we start scooping broth. Darcy announces Rachel doesn't pay anything.

We walk out of the restaurant, bellies full, and we start walking towards Melody by KTV. Darcy asks everyoen about their drinks, and she and Ellis disappear. They come back with various bottles of liquor. Rome offers his backpack, and we continue down the street for Melody KTV.

At this point, I start noticing Jake moving slower. I poke Rome and gesture towards Jake. He and I smirked again.

"Maybe I'll forget to fight with the staff about the A/C," Rome joked. Very few places in China keep their air conditioning at a decent temperature. Every room is ridiculously hot. The KTV rooms aren't any different. If anything, they're worse than being outside. And if you drink enough alcohol in a hot room, you'll probably end up puking in the nearby bathroom.

Darcy and Ellis negotiate prices at the front desk. Somehow, they can negotiate the biggest room for six people if there isn't a party happening. Tonight is no different. They make sure we get the bigger room so we can feel the air.

We get in our room and hang up our bags. Ellis starts typing in his phone, and not long after he finishes, a man comes in with a cart full ove beer. Darcy bee-lined to the song bank and starts looking for classic 90s songs. Rome joins her after giving me a look. He doesn't care what songs we pick. He wants to make sure we pick songs where there's a waitress in the music video.

Darcy grabs the microphone and starts belting out Aerosmith's "Dude! (Looks Like A Lady)." Her voice isn't bad. It's got the same grit as Steven Tyler. Ellis finds a tamborine and hits it to the beat of Darcy's song.

Jake and Rachel sit quietly while Ellis, Darcy, Rome, and I sing random songs. Cee Lo Green's "Fuck You" comes on the TV, and Rome takes the microphone and stares at Jake as he sings. Jake glares back as he chugs a bottle of Tsingtao.

I'll give Jake credit. He's a good sport. By Rome's second song, he figured out what we were doing, and he kept drinking while glaring. At this point, he probably figures if he stops, we win.

Rachel watches us, smiling. I can't tell if she figured out the game or not. I can tell she's enjoying her first night out. She sings along with us but doesn't get up herself. She sips her drink and smiles.

The songs quiet down, and we drink water. Ellis types in his phone, and another man comes in the room with a cart full of snacks. Jake leans in and whispers something to Rachel. She looks uncomfortable and starts inching away from him. I sit down next to her. Jake leaned back, clearly wasted.

"Let's play a game," Rome says. "Truth or Dare! Who's in?" Everyone eagerly raises their hand.

"Let's warm us up," Rome smirks. "Ariel, Truth or Dare?"

"Truth," I say.

"Are you really from Michigan, or are you pretending because you wish to be American?" Rome asks.

"I'm from Escanaba, ass!" I laughed. Rome laughs.

"All right," I say. "Jake, Truth or Dare?"

"Truth," he says drunkily.

"What really happened with the server at the hot pot place?" I ask. The rooms goes quiet. At that moment, Jake realizes why we keep making waitress jokes and why Rome only sings songs with waitresses in the music video. He swears under his breath and sighs.

"We didn't see each other for very long," Jake begins. "We were kinda dating for a month before anything exciting happened. I didn't get passed kissing with this one! So one day, she asks me over to her apartment. And I'm thinking to myself, 'This is it! I'm getting laid!' And I'm riding the subway all the way to Majiapu with all these fantasies in my head.

I get there, and she's the only one in the apartment. Clearly, she knew what she was doing. She said she had five roommates, but none of them were home? Oh yeah, she talked to them.

Anyway, we get to talking, and she takes me to her room. She and I are getting frisky. There's kissing and groping and all that shit. Well, she has me sit on the bed and tells me to wait while she goes to the bathroom. While she's there, I noticed a picture hanging on her wall. There was a man in the picture and a woman. And there was something familiar about that photo.

So when she comes back to the bedroom, wearing this short red nightie. She looked... stunning. I asked her about the man in the picture. She told me it's a picture of her real dad. Before her mom married the man she calls Dad, her mom had an American boyfriend. He was already back in the States by the time she found out she was pregnant. She took the picture off the wall and gave it to me. I looked at the picture, and then I had to get out of there. So I left. I texted her when I got home, apologizing, but I told her I needed space right now. The man in the picture was my dad."

We yelled so much the KTV staff came in the room to ask if we were okay. Darcy explains we're fine but maybe a little drunk. We calmed down, and Jake looks at Rachel.

"All right Rachel," he says, "Truth or Dare?"

"I can't top that story," she says, "so Dare."

"Sing the next song Rome plays," Jake says. Rome jumps to the song bank and picks a song. It was Adele. Rachel shrugs and steps to the front of the room.

I'd never heard such a beautiful voice come out of such a timid girl. She starts the song, and the mood changes. By the end of the song, we're clapping and cheering. She goes back to the seats.

"I think you'll fit in nicely," I tell her. By the time the "No drugs, gambling, and prostitution" song comes on, it's daylight. It's too early for the subways, but not too early for KFC breakfast. We walk to the nearest KFC to sober up before the subway ride, another fantastic KTV night.