Karaoke is the greatest paradox of my life so far. It is the one activity where the worse you do, the more praise you get! Anyone who picks a slow song with lots of hard-to-hit notes, and then goes for those notes, easily brings small teardrops of boredom and disappointment to everyone in the karaoke joint. We all came for that festival of colorful singers with arms flapping all over the place that give karaoke its good name. Karaoke is also the one activity where a complete loss of inhibitions is embraced. Not only is it important to put in your best effort missing as many notes as possible and invent some new dance moves that will hopefully be retired that same night, but the sappier the song you pick the better. This is not the time to put on your gameface and pretend you are a level-headed, composed adult. Every other moment in your life calls for that. If you're hurtin' something awful, let everyone know! We want to hear that knife twisting in your back, the sharpness of being lonely. Plus, these are the songs we all secretly love, but aren't really appropriate for publicness.

What I find most ironic about karaoke is that people are consistently embarrassed to sing. Everyone exercised freedom of choice in coming to this unpretentious bar serving stiff wells and beer in cans. You choose to come, you have one shining moment in your week to lose your inhibitions guilt-free, and you decided to maintain that overrated thing called dignity. In China, karaoke is called KTV. The major difference is that you rent a small room and thus end up with only the people you came with. Is this less embarrassing, or more? No strangers to give you namesake strange looks... just your friends that will be with you tomorrow to remind you of every nuance of your creative dancing. Personally I prefer the more social American method. Many a best friend I have made over the chorus of 'Sweet Caroline.'

KTV has also brought me the closest I will ever get to living my own episode of The Real World. My last night out in China, five of us went for KTV. Two bottles of Absolut, five strangers about to part ways, and unlimited karaoke until six o'clock in the morning.