www.korea.net

Ask a Korean the biggest cultural oddities facing a Westerner in his country, and
you will likely hear a commentary on terrifyingly spicy food, unfailing reverence
for the elderly or the perils of trying to master chopsticks. Ask a Westerner, however,
and the list transforms. What the heck is with these devil-may-care drivers?
They will demand. Why do older people barge through me as if I didn’t exist?
And how can Koreans gather in a small room, and sing and dance with facetwisting
abandon? True enough, karaoke, or noraebang (literally “song room”)
as it is known here, is one of those oddities, but it is far from unique to Korea.
My earliest brush with it actually took place in Hong Kong, where I lived and
worked for three years in the mid-’90s.
My first time, as such things tend to be, was unforgettable. Though a lifelong
lover of rock and pop music, and a passionate bathroom and mirror-front singer,
I had never for a second countenanced going out with friends to a karaoke, much
KOREA
FEBRUARY
2010
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