Sing, oh Muse, of the glory of norae bang

"Norae bang! Norae bang!"  I hear myself chanting this almost every weekend nowadays.  For those of you who used to witness my disgust with being dragged to Oklahoma's Wednesday karaoke nights, you may be wondering, "What's changed?"  I'll tell you what's changed: Asians do karaoke right!  There's no public room or sad drunks subjecting you to multiple renditions of I'll Stay Alive, Crazy or songs by French Canadians that were better left unrecorded in the first place.  It's just you and your friends in a private place the size of a large bedroom with your own book of songs and ultimate control over the playlist.  If one of your friends does decide to be a sad drunk and attempt to sneak in All By Myself, democracy reigns and the remote control can be used to confirm vetoes.  There's plenty of room to get your arm wheels going on Proud Mary and tambourines for the vocally disinclined, like me.  To top it all off, the pictures accompanying the songs are their own comedy show.  There's no rhyme or reason to which pictures are linked to which songs.  Paperback Writer might have a hula performance and dolphins as backup; Sweet Home Alabama (a surprising favorite of the Brits and Canadians who can't believe that I've actually been to Alabama) might have German street scenes in the background.  So I'll admit it: I'm a karaoke convert and damn happy about it. 

** For those of you outside of Korea, norae bangs are karaoke rooms in Korean.