Half a month of pocket money spent with three or four friends and no hesitation, huddled in a private room, to sing our hearts out. But when the hours were over and the music had died, it was somehow as if our youth had along with it passed away too.
花掉半个月的零用钱，和三四个朋友毫不犹豫地挤在包间里，尽情地歌唱。但当时间结束、音乐消逝时，我们的青春似乎也随之消失了。
So too have the KTV parlours themselves recently been dropping like flies. For the past decade, KTV in China had been on the decline. More than 80,000 KTVs have disappeared from our urban landscapes, including the brands we and many others used to know so well.
最近，KTV店本身也像苍蝇一样倒下。近十年来，中国的KTV一直在走下坡路。超过 80,000 家 KTV 已经从我们的城市景观中消失，其中包括我们和许多其他人曾经非常熟悉的品牌。
Many of the factors at play have been more or less predictable. Traditional, often alcohol-fueled, KTV offerings which may have included enticing sexual services, are no longer in favour. Today’s younger generations are smarter and have a far greater range of options available for their entertainment.
许多起作用的因素或多或少都是可预测的。传统的、通常以酒精为燃料的 KTV 服务（可能包括诱人的性服务）不再受欢迎。今天的年轻一代更加聪明，并且有更多的娱乐选择。
COVID, naturally, was pivotal. The complete industry shutdown as entertainment venues where people would gather, followed by ad-hoc closures as local conditions dictated, brought the sector to its knees.
新冠病毒自然是关键。作为人们聚集的娱乐场所，整个行业彻底关闭，随后根据当地情况临时关闭，导致该行业陷入瘫痪。
And when the dust had settled 3 years later, China’s youth had moved on. And while the mantra of old had been “eat, drink, sing K”, the industry today is bolstering itself on a diet of diversification, across multiple dimensions, age included.
三年后尘埃落定，中国的年轻人已经继续前行。虽然过去的口号是“吃、喝、唱K”，但如今这个行业正在通过多元化的饮食来支撑自己，涵盖多个维度，包括年龄。
As Xinhuanet.com reported last May, a customer-service representative of a KTV salon in Guangzhou revealed that from 11:00 to 16:00 every day, almost 80 percent of their customers patrons are now seniors. For a ballpark ¥40 per person, they receive a buffet and hours worth of singing. Attending seniors have noted that the associated VIP-card deal is particularly cost-effective.
据新华网去年5月报道，广州一家KTV店的客服代表透露，每天11：00至16：00，该店的顾客近80%都是老年人。每人花费 40 日元，他们就可以享受自助餐和长达数小时的歌唱表演。与会的老年人指出，相关的 VIP 卡交易特别划算。
Some others have even taken advantage of the privacy that KTV affords to hold matchmaking events; many seniors have apparently found a rejuvenation in that they believed was a long lost love life.
有的甚至利用KTV的私密性举办相亲活动；许多老年人显然在他们认为失去已久的爱情生活中找到了复兴。
For the more physically able, climbing walls are now to be found in more-glitzy KTV rooms, with pool tables included as part of a package intended to lure today’s youth back to a sector not just hit by a pandemic, but also intellectual property.
对于体力更强的人来说，攀岩墙现在可以在更炫目的 KTV 包房中找到，台球桌也作为套餐的一部分包含在内，旨在吸引当今的年轻人回到一个不仅受到流行病打击而且还受到知识产权打击的行业。
That means not just fewer customers, but fewer songs too. With music as its base, copyright has always been an issue. It may be hard to find an old song to sing in a KTV today, while music software now commands the copyrights of new songs. As Daxue Consulting reports, “People going to KTVs sometimes have almost no songs to sing”.
这不仅意味着顾客减少，而且歌曲也减少。以音乐为基础，版权一直是一个问题。现在的KTV里可能很难找到一首老歌来唱了，而音乐软件现在却掌握着新歌的版权。据大学咨询报道，“去KTV的人有时几乎无歌可唱”。
Some though, don’t even come for the music. College students with an innovative streak have even decided that when the important exam season is approaching, a KTV makes for the perfect study room.
但有些人甚至不是为了音乐而来。一些具有创新精神的大学生甚至决定，在重要的考试季节来临之际，KTV就是完美的自习室。
With their dormitories or bedrooms too hot or too cold and the library full, KTV’s advantages are very obvious. Air conditioning, large spaces and no need to wear headphones, mean that when tired of learning, to pick up and scream into a microphone is sure to release accumulated stress.
宿舍或卧室太热或太冷，图书馆又爆满，KTV的优势非常明显。空调、宽敞的空间以及无需佩戴耳机，意味着当学习累了时，拿起麦克风大声尖叫一定能释放累积的压力。
And as it seems, the screaming is key. As an aerobic exercise, which can promote cardiorespiratory circulation and improve lung capacity, singing simply burns fat.
看起来，尖叫是关键。唱歌作为一种有氧运动，可以促进心肺循环，提高肺活量，唱歌简直就是燃烧脂肪。
As noted by VisionZine, a woman in Nanjing once posted on social media platforms that she was singing alone in a KTV for 2 hours. Her sports watch showed that she had burned 350,000 calories. The next day, she was 3.6 kilograms lighter.
据VisionZine报道，南京一名女子曾在社交媒体平台上发帖称，她独自在KTV唱歌两个小时。她的运动手表显示她已经燃烧了 350,000 卡路里。第二天，她体重减轻了3.6公斤。
A related example even shows that singing for nearly 3 hours had consumed 722,000 calories.
一个相关的例子甚至表明，唱歌近3个小时已经消耗了72.2万卡路里的热量。
KTVs themselves have noticed the effect too, with one chain notably launching a special list of hits and training sessions, where customers can sing and dance alongside video, so that KTV boxes become immersive gyms.
KTV本身也注意到了这种影响，有连锁店特别推出了专门的热门歌单和培训课程，顾客可以在视频中唱歌跳舞，让KTV包厢变成沉浸式健身房。
At the gym, time always passes slowly; every minute becomes difficult as our muscles ache and an hour becomes a century. But our music lives on, in the KTV of a new now.
在健身房里，时间总是过得很慢；当我们的肌肉酸痛时，每一分钟都变得困难，一小时变成一个世纪。但我们的音乐在新的 KTV 中继续存在。
