noraebang is karaoke

From the American perspective it's difficult to see why a group of friends would pay to go into a small room, close the door, and then sing pop songs for hours... but once you've done it, you'll want to start a petition to bring the love of karaoke to America.

Saturday night I walked into the noreabang a newbie and I came out a staunch supporter. Real karaoke is absolutely not about singing for strangers, or listening to the singing of strangers. The real version - the one you see in hundreds of noraebang in Seoul - is a small scale, heavily reverbed, private cabaret performance for your friends.



It's incredible fun and depending how luxurious your noraebang, it's potentially pretty darn cheap. You simply pick one of the many noraebang lining the streets of Seouls' liveliest neighborhoods and hope there's not a line of people who got there before you. In a typical Saturday night's progression the noraebang visit usually comes after a great dinner and a visit for drinks and darts at another place -- thus, after the eating and the drinking it's time for the singing.



You pay your $15 for an hour (and then ten more dollars for another half hour when you realize an hour just isn't enough) and you head on in and close the door. The room you've been assigned is larger than a bathroom but smaller than a college dorm room, and it's got sofas and chairs and a large machine that makes wonderful things happen. Wonderful things like the playing of videos on a large flat screen TV while song lyrics roll across the lower part of the screen. Inside we found tambourines, two microphones with colorful little hairnets on them, and a catalogue with thousands of songs to choose from.

The list of viable song options is far shorter for folks who don't speak Korean than for those who do, including those of us who may be able to s-l-o-w-l-y decipher the alphabet but still need at least half a day to sound out a full sentence. The good news is that the west's domination of pop music means that there's still a healthy helping of English-language songs to choose from. Simply pick a song, punch the numbers into the very large remote control, and then wait.



Some of us may be less Broadway-ready than others but it really doesn't seem to make a difference. There's enough reverb and tambourine to turn anyone's off-key attempt into a Grammy contender. Ok, not really, but that's why you drank the beer before you came.

Karaoke really is tons of fun - and this from someone who's spent a lifetime believing they sing about as well as a harbor seal. So consider this fair warning - if you come to visit us in Seoul, you're not only going to have to listen to me sing, but you're going to have to get behind the mic as well. You might as well follow the advice we received from our friends in the know and prepare a couple of karaoke stand-bys before you arrive. (There's at least one person out there who will be happy to know that my go-to karaoke song is quickly becoming Madonna's "Material Girl." And Stefano does a pretty mean version of Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline.")



While our 4th of July couldn't have been more different this year than last, this Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty still spent the weekend celebrating freedom... the freedom to sing poorly, loudly, and late into the night.