Empty Orchestra Entertainment

As it looks like tonight will be my third night in a row when I end up at karaoke, I thought I'd explain a bit about the whole experience... Rather than being anything like a karaoke bar in the West, where someone stands up on a stage in front of everyone, in Japan the normal set-up is small, private rooms, each of which have their own TV and sound system. Walking to our room/cell last night, I was struck by how much the whole place resembled some kind of prison where people where being tortured to (or possibly with) music... Each of the rooms has a sofa facing the TV, a load of complicated remote controls, and some telephone-directory sized books listing the songs (often with a separate book of foreign songs). There's a phone to call for food or the next round of drinks. The all-you-can-drink option is popular - last night it was £15 per head for all of the singing and drinking we could manage between 11pm and 5am.

The Japanese and English approaches to karaoke are significantly different! We tend to concentrate on quantity, rather than quality, of sound; and normally all of us join in the song together. The selection of English songs is pretty good (although peculiarly patchy), and we're all working on learning a Japanese song well enough to be able to perform that... The problem is reading the kanji quickly enough as well as knowing the tune! In contrast, the more experienced Japanese or Chinese participants tend to sing solo, and take it very seriously. And are generally much better than us... Still, a fun way to end the night, and a particularly Japanese experience!