Korean Karaoke Is Addictive

For Jim Eagles, an adventurous spirit from New Zealand, South Korea turned out to be one of the most challenging places he’s ever visited. It’s because, he found, Karaoke is an integral part of Korean culture and, too bad, he is a bad singer.

“My singing is so bad that my children have been known to throw cold water over the top of the shower to stop my warbling,” he wrote in the New Zealand Herald on Saturday.

Eagles recently visited the Jeju island on a business trip. When his work was done, his Korean host invited him as well as some other foreigners, to a “Singing Room.”

Conscious of his ineptitude for singing, Eagles strongly yet peacefully resisted. But his host insisted. "You must try karaoke," she said. "It is part of our culture. It is what we do when we go out. If you want to understand Korea, you have to try this."

When other foreigners agreed to try, Eagles also reluctantly agreed to follow them, with the condition that he didn't have to sing.

As he expected, the singing occasion didn’t go well initially. People didn’t volunteer to sing first. “Initially no one was very keen to perform. During one of the long gaps, the Chinese-American, who had been here before, said, ‘Come on, if we were Korean everyone would want the mike, people would be fighting over it, liven up!,’” he wrote.

Gradually things did liven up. And he also got to sing. “I took the mike, stared at the screen and started, "In the town where I was born ..."

“It wasn't great but I didn't think it was too awful either. Then the karaoke machine gave my score: 97, the highest of the night so far. Cue applause. I was a star.”

His Korean host also complimented him: “You are a very sexy guy."

Soon afterwards Eagles found himself going for more songs “again and again.” For him, that was a very “encouraging” evening.

“The next morning I couldn't believe it happened. But the others confirmed it had. So, if you're planning to go to Korea, be warned. They'll try to take you to karaoke. And it's dangerously addictive,” he said.