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This piece is a development of notes I begun to take on noticing the humorous side of my relationship with my Korean colleagues. To save embarrassment, I have changed their names for this piece.

Being set down largely from memory and occasionally distant from the events being described, these notes may not consistently be true - but believe me, they feel true.

Christopher W Linfoot; February 24th 1999

We take up only seconds after where we left off last time. If you didn't read part one, you may want to do so first...

2. Carry what? - Or when to say no to Korean hospitality; part 2

We walked across town, the three Koreans gazing skyward at the forest of neon signs above our heads. They were looking for just the right place to engage in a spot of light singing.

"I like the beaters," announced Jeng. By this time we had become attuned to his pronunciation.

"Beatles," we said. "Any particular song?"

"Cun tree rud, tekker mi hum."

"That's John Denver. Any others?"

"Grin grin grassa hum."

We gave up trying to find if there were any Beatles songs in his repertoire and walked on in silence.

Eventually Jeng announced, to the evident consternation of the others, that he had found a suitable venue. They clearly had other plans, but Jeng was the senior man present and so there was no argument. We entered a tall building and ascended via an external, glass elevator to the fifth floor. This was followed by a brisk walk along a long and meandering corridor to the back of the building, taking us past a variety of mysterious emporia now closed for the night.

A room directly ahead announced "entertainment suite". We took a left instead.

"Wait here." Jeng was casing the joint, heaven knows why; maybe to ascertain the size of the potential audience for his ululation, maybe to check the acoustic. We waited.

Jeng beckoned us in and we were led to a small, empty room containing a large table, surrounded on three sides by sofas, and a prodigious bank of electronics, the controls of which were labelled only in Korean. There were two enormous loudspeakers, two television screens and two microphones hanging from a rack attached to the front of one of them. The televisions were silently displaying endless footage of young men snowboarding.

I was puzzled by the privacy of the place, having assumed that the point of karaoke was to stand up and make a fool of oneself in front of an audience. We sat down while Jeng ordered refreshments. By and by, the door opened and four Korean women and a man walked in. For a moment, I assumed that we had found the desired audience, however it rapidly became clear that all were employees of the establishment in which we now sat.

The man was a waiter and he deposited on the table a variety of bottles, cans, bowls of ice and glassware. The women were - well I didn't allow myself to speculate. I just watched while they positioned themselves around the table, taking great care to locate themselves in between the five of us and then attaching themselves to one visitor a piece, sparing one of the Koreans.

They opened bottles and began to pour drinks. Leather bound menus were produced, containing not lists of food or drink items, but a comprehensive list of songs, the backing tracks for which were available. Most songs were Korean, but an English language section listed many respectable karaoke numbers. Sinatra, Presley, Cliff Richard and many, many Beatles songs. They were all there.

Jeng announced his desire to sing "Mother of Mine" and then did so with complete abandon. He waved his arms, screwed up his eyes and positively roared. The result sounded nowhere near as bad as I had expected. This may have been partially due to the electronic karaoke gadget, which had been configured to flatter poor voices by adding a reverberation effect and boosting what sound engineers call "presence".

Professional singers in Korea must have hard lives - the entire population seems convinced that it can do as well, if not better.

One of the women poured me a drink but before I had a chance to take refreshment, Jeng grabbed me by the elbow and hurled me out to the front of the room.

"Lim put. You sing!" he ordered.

The modern karaoke machine is an utter marvel of invention, and the one currently under my control was a cutting edge example. The way it works is this: Each item on the menu has a unique number, which you punch into the keypad on the front of the karaoke unit. Almost instantly, the introduction to the chosen song starts and the first line of words is displayed in white on the TV screen (which in this case mysteriously continued its advertisement for winter sports in Colorado in the background). As the correct moment in the song for each word is reached, the word turns red on the screen - a sort of modern equivalent to the bouncing dot. The words themselves frequently make no sense at all, presumably having been typed by a Korean who knew English only phonetically.

I was allowed the privilege of selecting my own song. I chose "Done letter sun go downer me".

I returned to the table to find that a bottle of Dimple scotch whisky had been introduced into the proceedings. Bob and I looked at each other. A whole bottle of scotch, and there were only four people drinking as one of our Korean colleagues had declared himself on the wagon. This could only end in tears.

The evening wore on endlessly, punctuated by louder and less tuneful singing and occasional, unintelligible toasts. As the whisky took its toll on the Koreans, they became less inclined to choose western songs, favouring the domestic product. Now, this may seem intolerant, or even racist, but I do not intend it that way: All Korean pop songs sound the same. They are all bouncy, upbeat numbers, taken at a steady disco pace and accompanied by those irritating, electronic drum sounds that were so popular in the late seventies. Dancing is, of course, mandatory.

It had become clear that the Korean women were hired party guests. Our Korean colleagues treated them like long lost friends, despite the facts that they had never met before and may never meet again. During the slow numbers, when not singing, Jeng and the others danced with them cheek to cheek. It was during the disco numbers that I started to worry about the way things were developing. Jeng selected a tall, slim, long haired girl and taught here a new dance. She was to stand in front of him with her legs parted, while he did the same and then adopted a position in which they faced each other, their legs interleaved. They jumped up and down in time to the music, all the while Jeng wearing a blissful, if salacious smile.

I glanced at the clock. We had been here but 40 minutes. It seemed like hours. Now I glanced at the table. The first Dimple was empty and a second had appeared. Bob and I still had full glasses from the first one - where had it all gone?

I saw one of the Korean girls pick up a tumblerful of scotch that could have felled a small elephant and down it in one go. The mystery was solved. It seemed a strange way to make a living - to spend evenings dancing with strangers, getting recklessly drunk at their expense and getting paid for it too. I am sure there is a word for that.

The second Dimple emptied more quickly than the first and, just when I hoped the proceedings might be winding down, you guessed it - another turned up.

One hour, twenty minutes in and still there was no sign of an end to the proceedings. One of the Koreans was asleep, another cross-eyed, but Jeng was going strong.

I decided to play on his nature as a dedicated company man cum workaholic.

"I must go soon. I have work to do."

That did the trick.

"OK. We leave in half hour." He reached for the microphone and delivered what he clearly felt was the definitive performance of Unchained Melody.

Forty five minutes later and after further prompting, Jeng settled the bill and led us back outside. The third Dimple was empty; the friendliness of the hired female friends all gone. They now regarded us with cold contempt as they bowed stiffly and said goodbye.

Out in the street, Mr Moon, who had driven us to town earlier on, staggered about rummaging for his car keys in his pocket. He gave up and announced his intention to find a taxi.

"Tomorrow, we go to Okpo by helgi," said Jeng. But that's another story.

Footnote:

Karaoke is now a national obsession in Korea. This was illustrated a few days later when, on driving back into town from Seoul airport, Mr Hong turned on the radio to listen to a radio karaoke programme.

The idea is simple enough: Listeners phone in and sing along, over the telephone, to a backing track of their choice. A minority are quite good, but most are dreadful, often not knowing the words, drying up or obstinately singing in the wrong key (or no key at all). The good one get prizes. The bad ones are mocked mercilessly though, oddly, this does not seem to deter others suffering from tone deafness or amnesia.

Copyright notice. This piece is copyright © 1998-2004 by Christopher W Linfoot. All rights reserved.