KaraOKe

I've always been biased against karaoke. It goes back to my backpacking days. Karaoke had just reached it's first fad stage in Sydney, so by definition my nature determined that I must reject it (along with Boy George, big hair and oversized jackets). My predetermined bias was only reinforced by seeing the damage it was wreaking across South-East Asia. Malaysians were heard attempting celtic yodelling and Thais were failing miserably in their renditions of I, I Baby (Thais can't say 'ice').

I must admit that I did dabble once. It was on a work trip with a colleague some years later to South Korea at the end of a week giving training courses where the one Korean who could speak some English translated for the 40 who couldn't, while at the same time attempting to translate all the training documentation. Still, they were all very grateful and offered to take us to dinner and then on to karaoke. I'm not sure how much of this was politeness or how much of this was because they were in shock that we had chosen to eat in local restaurants and walk to work, but to refuse would have been impolite.

The dinner, a Korean barbeque, was superb, although I never did get used to Kimchi. After a dozen shots of Soju I was up for the karaoke and we proceeded on foot a short distance to what seemed like a nightclub except that it was empty barring a couple of girls in short skirts who served drinks.

Our hosts were straight into the singing - awful pop culture Korean songs accompanied by jarringly tacky film clips that inevitably involved a young starlet staring lovingly into the eyes of an enamoured man while the wind blew white sheets around the place. By the end of each song the couple may get to the stage of holding hands. I thought of it as anti-porn.

The General Manager of the company shared Korean whiskey with his special guests (us) and slowly drank himself into oblivion while his staff, freed of the restraints of the working week, loosened their ties and sipped beers. They also seemed to enter oblivion on their one beer - an impressive effort that one suspects was a requirement written into their contracts.

Finally it was our turn to sing. Much to my horror, all the Koreans were suggesting we sing Hotel California. I couldn’t work out why – was the song really that popular in Korea (yes), was there an Eagles revival in Korea (yes) or was this the only English song in the songbook (yes).

My colleague wrapped an arm around me (he’s a touchy “I love you man” kind of drunk) and we sang a beautiful duet occasionally in time with a scratchy Korean backing tape while pop-girl made goo goo eyes at pop-boy. Every Korean knew every word and sang along.

Our performance over, we were led to the dance floor by one of our inebriated Korean trainees. He enquired as to our marital status and upon finding out I was single signalled to one of the short skirted girls to come over. He introduced us to her as “Well hung”. We were confused – was she a transvestite? Fortunately it was just her name and she was more hostess than waitress. The trainee encouraged me to dance with her, which I was reluctant to do, not just because I recently thought she was well endowed but also because she simply didn’t interest me. But again, refusal may have been taken as impolite, so holding her at arms length we had a few steps on the dance floor. This did not satisfy the trainee, who pushed my body up against hers, grabbed my hand and shoved it down her cleavage. I didn’t linger. I pulled my hand out straight away, thanked her for the dance, the trainee for his concern for my physical needs, the general manager for the whisky, my colleague for his singing ability, and exited stage left, my karaoke experience over – I hoped for good.

I was wrong, but it took eight years till my next karaoke experience.

Karaoke is experiencing a revival in Sydney. Led by the influx of Japanese and Korean students, its popularity has spread to the population at large, or at least at medium. I was mistakenly under the impression that it was essentially something sung in pubs by pissed business people and the entertainmently challenged. How wrong was I.

Karaoke World is just that – OK so it’s not an entire planet populated by people singing along to scratchy Korean pop songs, but within its confines it may as well be. Certainly entering Karaoke World is like visiting another planet – or at least going to the airport to get there. Armed security guards ran metal detectors over us and we descended a flight of steps to a counter where money changed hands, rooms were assigned and alcoholic beverages were purchased. From along a hallway resembling a hospital wing came the tortured screams and yells from the eternal torment of dying songs. Hundreds of pop songs get murdered at Karaoke World every day, only to rise from the dead and be murdered again at the next hen’s night, birthday party or student get together.

I was there for a friend’s 30th birthday. She’s a regular at Karaoke World. The smoky claustrophobic cells that serve as karaoke rooms are a source of great warmth and humour to her. She knows how the remote control works, which drink has the greatest alcohol to dollar value (white wine) and where the toilets are. I knew none of this and had to be shown. I also had to be shown the songbook, and much to my pleasure I discovered a telephone like book of hundreds of songs and all of them in English. There are similar books of just songs in Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Malaysian and many other languages. One accidental press of the wrong button on the remote control and you could be crooning along to Koreapop (if you could read hangul).

I selected ‘End of the World As We Know It’ by REM, not because I thought I could sing it but because I’ve always wanted to know what the words are. There are lots of them, they come very quickly and I couldn’t sing it, but everybody knew the chorus and helped me out and when it ended I got a round of applause for my bravery. I was also to find out the words to ‘The Look’ by Roxette. They’re wonderfully nonsensical in a poorly translated Swedish sort of way. Loving is the ocean, kissing is the wet sand. Huh?

I head banged at the right point in Bohemian Rhapsody (thanks of course to Wayne's World), knew all the words to Midnight Oil and INXS tunes, laughed at the expense of my friends’ attempts at singing Beatles, Missy Higgins and Elvis, and enjoyed the antics of the buck in his Lederhosen who decided to give us a song and dance routine to Kiss.

Perhaps the real triumph of Karaoke is the ability to turn the truly dreadful into, if not the truly wonderful, then maybe the hilariously bearable. 'I am the Walrus', 'Man, I Feel Like a Woman' and 'All Out of Love' have never sounded so reasonable.

OK, so the videos haven't improved. Korean pop boy is still trying to score with Korean pop girl, but much to my surprise, when I stumbled outside at 2am, I found I had enjoyed myself. And I’d do it again – but I probably should do some practising first.