The Art of Karaoke

Before coming to Japan, I had never done karaoke in my life. That changed really quick since i got here. Karaoke is a great destresser and just a fun way to spend time with your friends. However, I also learned that there are rules to karaoke. Rules that I haven't been able to master since I've been here. No, it's not only singing into a mic. Karaoke is an art. If you are with a group of foreigners, we just end up singing all together. Put on a Queen song or heck Whitney's "Dance With Somebody" and everyone is up on their feet and singing as loud as they can, in not so perfect unison.

I learned that Japanese people do not do this. Oh no! Each person gets a verse, lines, chorus, whatever. Somehow, everyone knows when to sing and when to let the other person sing. If it's a huge group, it is not uncommon to see them pass the mic down so that everyone can get a chance to sing individually.

I witnessed these unspoken rules again this weekend when my friends and I went to a karaoke bar. We were 3 Americans, 1 Trinidadian, and 2 Japanese (1 we had just met that morning at the beach but that's a whole other story). Anyway, when we chose a song (Akon "Right Now Na Na Na"), we all sang out the lyrics so that even the bar down the hall could hear us. Oh boy, what a scene. Our 2 Japanese friends did not say anything, but they sure showed us how it was done.

Let me just remind you that one of them we met that morning, so those two had never actually talked until that night. Anyway, they agreed on a song (Exile of course) and then started singing. One would sing one verse, another would sing another, they would sing the chorus in perfect unison and well, it was karaoke magic. They later did a Japanese hip-hop song with the same ease and perfection. I was thoroughly impressed. Of course, us foreigners had to ruin it by singing out Whitney Houston to the dismay of everyone's ears.

ALTs have to go through so many different orientation workshops. Most of them are useless and quite truthfully, I don't remember 95 percent of what I was told. However, someone should do a karaoke orientation. It could fall under the topic Life in Japan. We should really learn so that we could stop embarrassing ourselves. lol.

Music Listening To At The Moment: Utada "Apple & Cinnamon"