Friday, April 24, 2009

Karaoke...Arab Style

Thursday night, the young professionals' club had a "social event," K A R A O K E! It said it started at 9. So being on Arab time, I left my house at 9, and walked the 10 minutes to the cafe. And of course the actually karaoke did not start till 10:30. But it was still a fun time. I had some "wing girls" come with me, that are not a part of the club. I have learned that I need to work on my small talk game. It was nice to have the girls with me to help with small talk, prove that yes, this poor foreign girl does have other friends, and of course to help me carry a tune! It was fun!

I was a little nervous about not being able to Karaoke, because I can't read Arabic fast enough to sing with it. But looking through the books of songs before we started, they had half-n-half English/Arabic, which was a comfort. And then it hit me, I really only know Ch and Country music enough to sing along with it! So, we looked and found 2 songs that I could sing: "That Don't Impress Me Much!" by Shania Twain, (listen to this song if you have it, it is very true about the men here, if I might add) and "Tim McGraw" by Taylor Swift. LHUMDILILLA (thanks be to God), my roommate sang with me on both of these, and the mic volume was low. We left the party at 12AM though, so I didn't get the worse voice award! Interestingly, only the chorus of one song was in Arabic, the majority of the songs were in English, with maybe a-third of the songs were in French!

So, I introduced the scene to my country music! I knew most of the English songs, some well enough to sing along to like "How To Save A Life," but there were a couple that I didn't really know.

Karaoke, Yes! A Success, and I think I could do it again someday! No one was all that great, but everyone sings along with you anyway. And now the ice is broken with the group, and we have things to tease each other about, which always helps in the small talk game! So a good night all around!

1 comment:

Jaclyn.... said...

I've also had a karaoke experience overseas. Good job getting out of your comfort zone...it pays off!