Karaoke

A few years ago I was stranded for several days at a hotel with a number of other passengers. We were waiting for an ancient plane to be repaired, the one that was scheduled to take us to another world. At night in the hotel dining room there was a television set playing a video with all sorts of old American songs in English. A bouncing ball would highlight the words on the screen. To my amazement most of the passengers seemed to know all of the songs and would sing along with gusto. I wondered where they had learned all those American songs? That was my first introduction to karaoke.

Since then, I have discovered that karaoke is rapidly becoming a cultural feature of southeast Asia. For those who do not know, karaoke is a term applied to any of various types of mega amplifiers attached to a microphone. (There may also be a video like there was in the hotel, but since one usually can't hear it, I can't be sure.) Parties of any sort seem to demand a karaoke and renting out karaokes is a big business. Party attenders take turns trying to sing using the microphone. It is not at all uncommon to be able to hear these wannabes for blocks. It is usually true that the singer needs the practice, but one wonders why they think the entire region wants to hear them practice. And should jaded neighbors, unable to sleep all night complain, they merely receive the innocent reply, "Oh, well, you see we had a party," which of course explains everything. Naturally the young teens feel that it is wasting an opportunity if they don't take advantage of the presence of an ultra humongous amplifier, so the day after the party you get to hear it all over again until finally, mercifully, the rental truck comes and picks it up and peace descends once again.

These mega amplifiers have many uses. In some parts of southeast Asia, the electronic band has now become a fixture at weddings and birthday parties, and even in churches, not to mention discos, bars, and the like. These giant amplifiers can broadcast the band to the next province. It is an amazing experience to be standing outside at night looking at the Milky Way galaxy spilled across the clear star-studded black sky, to the background noise of a wannabe band wafting over the rice paddies....