You have to have a song, pt. 2
In the late 1980s, my family got our first 8-track karaoke machine. It was huge and extremely heavy and we kept it stationed by the piano. We weren't the type of family to host karaoke parties at home, I think my parents wanted it to practice so that they could show up at other people's singing parties prepared. Years later, I remember my dad telling someone who was considering moving to Taiwan for work, "You have to have a song ready to go." Because you never know when a night might end with singing. It happens more often than you think.
In high school in the early 90s, karaoke parlors with private rooms started popping up around town. The largest chain was called Cashbox (its rival was Holiday, but my friends and I were Cashbox devotees, all the way). You could rent a room by the hour and cue songs on the machine that was hooked up to a TV, which displayed the lyrics. Probably because of licensing reasons, the music videos were never the official ones, but clips of blonde haired models walking along cobblestone riverside paths in indeterminate European towns. Along with songs, we ordered snacks like fried squid and baskets of popcorn and mixed cheap red wine with cans of Apple Sidra. The English songs were limited, so it was how many of us learned how to read Chinese. Going out singing was often what we did after clubbing - it was never the activity you started the night with. You had to have already gotten to a certain level of high. At the same time, your body was tired from dancing and sinking into a couch in a room where an attendant would bring you food and drinks when you pushed a button on the wall sounded very appealing.
Before we were married, my husband and I lived in New York for several years. We were in our mid-twenties at a time when our closest friends and cousins (who we've always been close to) either lived in the city with us or came to visit so frequently our pull-out sofa was more often occupied than not. One of my cousins discovered a Cashbox-like karaoke bar in the East Village called Sing Sing, which, as of last summer when we brought our kids to New York, was still there at the same location on St. Marks Place. The roster of songs at Sing Sing were mainly American and the proprietors kept it up-to-date. Unlike singing Mandopop, where most of the songs are ballads and more suitable for solos and duets, American pop music is perfect for sing-yelling collectively at the TV and getting up to dance. We went to Sing Sing so often we memorized the codes for our favorite songs. 33806 was always our starter song. I won't reveal what song it is. If you ever go to Sing Sing, punch 33806 into the machine and I promise you, it will get the party started.
Singing was such a big part of our time in New York, we bought a set of DVDs we could hook up to the TV in our apartment and hosted parties at home. We were terrible neighbors. For our wedding, my best friend gifted us karaoke microphones, where the songs were embedded into the mics themselves.
We moved to Asia when we were pregnant with our first child. Ironically, that was when we started to sing less - ironic because Asia is where singing culture continues to flourish. Well, it's not true to say we sang less - I was just singing in different venues (Kindermusik classrooms) and putting in different kinds of CDs (children's songs) and singing with a different crowd (my toddlers).
This weekend, we enjoyed a night out with our good friends, which ended with singing. We’re all in our late 40s/early 50s and I had to spend the entire next day recovering in bed, but I thought about how my oldest is now 18 and goes out singing with his friends and how this brings me so much satisfaction and excitement, to know that he's ending his nights out in a room with good friends and excellent snacks and belting out Mandopop songs into the mic. I think it's how my parents would feel if we invited a nagashi band to a dinner out with friends.
If we do that, I'll be sure to give the keyboard guy the music to 33806.
