Learning to Love the Heck Out of Korea #5- NORAEBANG!

This week signaled the end of the 2008 school year (students had to come to school for 10 workdays in February to tie up lose ends from December.) So on Tuesday night my co-workers and I went out for dinner to bid farewell to the teachers who are being transferred to new schools. Here, teachers get transferred every 4 years whether they like it or not. Unfortunately, this sometimes means that teachers will be transferred to cities or towns in places other than where they live. Their families will be in one spot and their jobs in another. I don’t mean “that’s one bitch of a commute”, it’s more like, their spouses and kids live in one city/town and they live in another. Anywho, 3 teachers found out this week that they’re being transferred next week and we went out to bid them farewell. During dinner, I caught the word “noraebang” (pronounced “noray bung”) in some Korean convos and concluded that they were planning to go out singing karaoke-style after we ate. I was tired but I really wanted to witness Koreans singing karaoke. To me, karaoke is a bunch of drunk people singing “Dancing Queen” at the tops of their lungs. I had a feeling that this wasn’t how Koreans did things, and boy was I right. Noraebang means “singing room”. You pile into a room with your group where there are couches, TV screens and mics. I was so blown away by the ballads that my co-workers belted out. This was not your normal night of drunken karaoke. During some of the numbers, I noticed people sitting around with their eyes closed, singing and swaying to the music. Really feelin’ it. I knew, too, that they were going to want to me sing and I was reluctant at first but decided to give it a go. I chose my song very carefully-- Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! by ABBA-- because I knew that Koreans like LOVE ABBA and they would sing along rather than listen intently to my toneless attempt at singing. I felt pretty embarrassed, but went with it and before I knew it, the chairman of the school (like my principal’s boss) was dancin’ up on me as I attempted to sing! A enjoyed it so much (the singing, not the old man danicng up against me) that I agreed to sing a second and went with Sweet Caroline (again, hoping they would sing along). It was a fun cultural experience, but not one that I don’t see catching on in Canada. Who would ever sing ABBA in front of their boss stone cold sober? The weirdest bit, though, was the next day, everyone acted like it never happened… Maybe I wasn’t as entertaining as I thought.