Outside the tall, glass building the colourful neon sign is brightly shining: ‘KTV’. I’d often pondered what was inside but had never actually ventured inside until a little while ago. I assume that KTV stands for kalaoke - no joke, they really do the L/R switch, like eating Indian cully and going to see the new Hally Pottel movie - television or something.

When I think about karaoke I think about a half-drunk man or woman blearing the theme song to Gilmore Girls in front of a room of people in a dusty hotel. But I guess that since then karaoke has come a long way, especially in Asia.

In fact, it’s the most surreal thing I’ve seen so far in China. You enter this building and it’s divided into lots of little rooms of various sizes. The whole place looks incredibly high-tech and like something from the future. It rather looks like an alien spaceship out of a seventies TV show. Inside the little soundproofed – or more or less soundproofed – rooms are groups of friends singing and enjoying the free drinks and buffet (yummy, chicken feet, hearts and tongues, just what I’ve always wanted…) that come with the entry price of around 30/40 yuan per person.

I never really saw the point to karaoke to be honest. But it is actually quite an appealing thing to just go there with two friends and sing along to corny songs – ‘Where You Lead’ – at the top of your lungs. I don’t know why, but you can just unwind a little bit when doing that. It’s an outlet for emotions and I suppose this is also why it’s appealing for a lot of people in this part of the world. And they got computer technology that slightly modifies your voice to make it sound like your singing quite well.

I’ve been watching too much of a TV-show called ‘Doctor Who’ lately (because it’s incredibly good). It’s a science fiction show with aliens and things like that who try to take over/destroy/enslave the world through different kinds of crazy and creative plans and schemes. And I think there may just be a group of aliens harvesting the power of 1.3 billion karaoke singers to jumpstart their spaceship.

Or maybe I just need to stop watching Doctor Who for a while.

I‘m terribly embarrased about something. For you see, there is something about which I have not been very truthful. Some people might outrightly call it lying but I think lying is such an ugly word. I’ll just call it twisting the truth, though even that has a negative ring to it. How about an ‘imaginated version of the truth’? Yes, that will work. And besides, when you hear my reasoning for it you’ll totally understand anyway.

I’ve been telling some people about a Belgian girl I met named Linda who I have traveled a bit with. Now first of all I did indeed meet a Belgian girl and technically we traveled together a little bit. But her name was not Linda. And in fact, there were two Belgian girls but I cannot with full certainty now recall their names.

No, the true identity of Linda has remained hidden until now. It all started three months ago in a club near the Hong Kong border. Me and two friends went to a hotel there for a supposed party. The party was a bit of a bore as there was only a handful of people. However, among these people there was someone that caught my attention. His name? Eros. Yes, I know, a rather peculiar name but you can also applaud it for its uniqueness. Actually, his Chinese name is Zhang Jia Yi or 张佳毅.

Well, there we got to talking after a few drinks. And well, now, three months later we’re still talking. In fact, one could say we’re now a couple. I’m not sure why I’ve created the persona of Linda until now to keep it hidden and not just come clean with the truth of it right away but I suppose it’s because of the reactions. And because I’ve also been waiting to see where it was all going and if it was going to turn into something serious. Well, most of the traveling I did in the last few weeks was with ‘Linda’ so I thought it was time now to lift the veil. Sorry for the whole thing.

Anyway, now you’ll probably want to know some more. Linda (I’m sticking with the name and female gender here because of people from my work coming across this blog and I don’t want them to know) works in Guangzhou. She studied to be a director in Beijing and directs a Chinese TV show which I really don’t understand. Besides that she also teaches. However, every now and then we hit a little bit of a communication barrier because her English is actually quite poor. So it’s really speeding up my learning of Chinese. But despite she knowing that I don’t really intend to spend more than a year China she still stays with me despite my warnings.

So to just clarify again. I’m not suddenly straight. Linda is just a codename. This is the second of a series of stories about my travels in China.

Across from me sits a woman in the chair that is just too small for her. Her bottom spills over into the next seat to the great annoyance of the person next to her. The expression on her face is one of study as the looks at me. Not unlike the look your face would produce when trying to read a sign on the highway which is too far away and when you need new glasses. Besides her sits a man, who I presume to be her son, who is also looking at me, in his eyes the same expression as the woman.

Next to this man sits another man on a bucket. The train we are in is so full that all the chairs are already taken. Why this man took a bucketload of buckets into the train is something I don’t know but they turn out to be a convenient chair. The bucket man glances over at me every now and then. The family on the other side of the train compartment makes no secret of their curiosity. The younger children point at me and then at their nose or ears or eyes.

Me and my fellow travelers are in the train on the way to the Chinese city of Guilin. The 12 hour train ride which was supposed to be 10 hours is proving to be an interesting glance into Chinese life. There are people standing in the pathways, in the smoking area. Some are sitting on the floor and someone has perched herself on the little wash basin next to the toilets. All around people are munching on the snacks they brought or get boiled water for their instant noodles from the dining car. And all the while the air conditioner strains to keep up with all the radiating body heat.

I’m tempted to ask where they are going and what they’ll do there. Are all these people in this train to go on holiday? Or are they going back home? Why are they willing to endure this sneak preview of hell to get to their destination? I’m too shy to ask since previous incidents with people laughing at my Chinese. So I suppose I’ll never find out. Also, if they find out I can speak a few words of Chinese I will not get a second rest on this train.

And just when you think now it’s really full the train pulls into a station. You look out the window at the dozen or so people standing at each door pushing to get in and you think how on earth are you all going to come in here? But they do, somehow. And everyone stands a little closer together. Some of these people need to stand up in this train for all of the 12 hours of this journey.

For the first two hours in this train most of my thoughts consisted of ‘oh my God this is madness’. When those two hours were over I thought I’d quite like to read a book so I get up, climb over some people, crawl underneath some other ones, navigate through a jungle of bags, buckets and let’s not forget garbage. Finally, I reach my bag. I look around me to see if I’ve hurt anyone and notice that every single person in this train is staring at me. So I do what anyone would do. Wave and say: ‘good evening!’. Which had the absolutely wonderful result of suddenly making everyone realise they were rudely staring and in the blink of an eye everyone looked away.

And at last, dawn comes. And with dawn comes the arrival of the train into the otherworldly landscape of Guilin.

This is the first of a series of stories about my travels in China.

Or at any rate, that is what Hong Kong calls itself. I haven’t much time so I need to be rather short today. What I will give you however is pictures! So open those sleepy eyelids and gaze upon what is arguably one of the world’s most interesting cities.

The highlight of my two-day trip was without question my trip to the island of Lantau, an undeveloped island only 30 minutes away by ferry from Hong Kong’s main harbour. It’s the home of the 24 meters tall Buddha and the Po Lin monastery. But also of an incredible natural beauty and a lot of open space. And I regret only having a few days there, but I will certainly go back and go on a hiking trip in October as the weather will be cooler. Anyway, I’ll leave the rest of the pictures to tell their own story.

Look inside the post to see the pictures.
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In the morning I will be leaving to Hong Kong and then through the rest of China for a couple of weeks. I don’t know how my internet availability is going to be so it could occur I can’t update for quite a while. So don’t worry about that and just keep coming back and keep the comments coming.

One takes two kilos of flour, 10 eggs, 3,75 liters of milk and 4,5 tsp. of baking powder and then proceeds to vigorously mix the ingredients until pain in the arm forces the stirrer to rest. After recovering continue stirring – if needed use the other arm – until the mixture is smooth of texture. Leave the concoction to rest for several minutes and use this opportunity to rest your tired arms also. If company permitting it is best to do this scarcely dressed as mixture sent flying around the room and the heavy stirring can cause mess and sweating.

When the preparer of the pancakes has sufficiently rested and dried up in close proximity to the airconditioning proceed to turn on the fire to a high level. The heat produced by the fire will instantly cause anyone nearby to turn into a trickling sweat-fountain. Add butter to the pan and bake pancakes. Flip pancakes carefully and avoid pan slippage due to sweaty hands. All the while, make sure not to emit sweat into the pan as salty pancakes don’t please the palet of any man. Also I would like to interject that any man that enjoys a piece of bacon or other such products on a pancake should be sent to the insane asylum.

Proceed to bake 40 pancakes of a medium size. Have a mop nearby to dry and sweep floor of sweat and mixture-spills. Nobody ever said pancakes were a clean affair.

Eat 10 pancakes for dinner and save the other 30 for the next day when they will be taken to 20 hungry children aged between four and seven. Explain to children how pancakes are created. Hand the children various sweet substances and demonstrate how to give the pancakes facial features such as eyes, ears, mouth and nose using a combination of the following: sugar syrup, strawberry jam, chocolate cream, blueberry cream and chunks of mandarin.

Convert the pancake into a roll and proceed to put it into the mouth. Now, instruct children to follow the above procedures and enjoy the spectacle.

One girl whose name shall remain unknown for privacy reasons put the tube of chocolate cream to her mouth and emptied its contents into it. Then as I told her not to do that she opened her mouth to protest and the chocolate – or what was called chocolate but had no semblance to the taste of it – dribbled all down her dress, chin, neck and hands. Another put the pancake to her mouth and had the chunks of chocolately mandarin fall into her lap.

In the end it was a battlefield of half-to-fully devoured corpses of pancakes. Sticky tables, hands and faces all around. Somehow I got jam or syrup into my shoe and for the rest of the day my feet and shoes sounded like unrolling a piece of tape.

But regardless, the pancakes were a huge success. Let’s hope they forget about them quickly and never want them again. Today, we’re taking twenty kids to the pizza restaurant Papa Johns and making pizza. Thankfully, we won’t need to clean that up.