Are you ready for this? It's... Kenny G.
In the last 18 months, Bethany and I only made a minor mental note of this whenever we were in shopping centers here in China near closing time. I remember when we were buying furniture in a giant warehouse. Right around 10 minutes to 6, we heard that familiar soprano saxophone. Another time, I was in a department store mall just before closing. And sure enough, there was Kenny G again. We would look at each other, puzzled, and think to ourselves, "That's weird. Isn't that the same song we heard over at... when they were closing for the day too?"
This last Sunday, we went to check out the city public library. It's a 4-story, well-lit but somewhat sterile-feeling library with book stack rooms, lots of reading rooms, free wifi, and electrical outlets. It has a large and open center atrium, and all of the rooms are separated by glass. We spent about 4 hours there - Bethany did some Chinese studying while I setup a local Rails development environment on my machine.
At 5:45, we said to each other, "Do you think this place closes at 6? Oh well, I guess we'll wait and see." Then, 5 minutes later... the loudspeakers began blaring that familiar song.
Before shutting down, I quickly wikipedia'ed Kenny G. I needed to find out more. Why does everybody play this song?
It turns out that "Going Home" is a very popular song in China, played at many public places when they're about to close. The article goes on to say that in Shanghai and Tianjin, the subway even plays this song when the train is nearing the final station for the line.
We also noticed just how ingrained this song is in the minds of Chinese people. As soon as the song started to play, the people around us just naturally began to pack up their things to go. It was almost like a Pavlovian conditioned response. Kenny G = time to go.
We decided that we are going to keep an mp3 of this song handy in our home. If we have guests over and they're beginning to overstay their welcome, we're going to play this song on the stereo and see what happens.
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8 comments:
this is so cool and you 2 are always on alert with you surroundings and even sound-songs! Good for you.
that's hilarious! now whenever I hear the song state-side, I'm going to think of everyone in China packing up and getting ready to leave; you'll have to let us know how well your "experiment" works ; )
good to know your tricks :)!
need to try this!
LOL. =)
I listened to a few seconds of the song, and I would be so annoyed hearing that all the time. Not my style. LOL. It would definitely make me want to leave!
that's so funny!!! kenny g is pretty sleep-ifying so i guess that's as good a choice as any! =)
Whenever I hear "Country Road" or "Hotel California," I think of China because those songs were [are?] such mainstays in the mainland. Now Kenny G too, how sad. I once met a guy in Chengdu and he asked me where I was from. I said Chicago, and some how we started to talk about music. I mentioned that Chicago was famous for the Bluse, and asked if he knew what that meant. He said, "oh yea, like Back Street Boys." How sad.
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