I bang, you bang, we all bang for Nori-bang

Before I start this blog I need to make one think very clear. In England Karaoke is a four letter word, a word that carries with it images of drunken dads and childhood fears. As a child, if I’d been particularly naughty, my mum would chase me round the house with a microphone shouting ‘Karaoke. Sing Lewis sing!’ I still wake up screaming at the thought, but the screams are out of tune of course.

As the years passed my hatred of the ‘k’ word and everything it stood never diminished. At one stage I started a political party whose sole aim was to get karaoke removed from Britain at the earliest given opportunity. To promote it would be a crime, indeed I suggested if someone were to be caught singing out of key into a metal box, then the culprit should be stoned to death.

But then I got to Korea. I’d heard about nori bangs (translation, singing rooms) and this seemed like a liberal compromise. Let people butcher well known classics, but in a private room out of my way. It was a perfect solution.

The strange thing about karaoke is that it falls into a polarised market. The two groups it appeals to are firstly teenage girls, and secondly pissed up middle aged men in bars, who still haven’t quite got over the fact that they won’t be rock stars. Credit where it’s due that’s a tough pair to find common ground with; teenagers and older men who find solace in drink. The catholic church have done their bit, but I’m not sure that’s quite the same as the karaoke angle.

And so, as the first few weeks in Chuncheon passed, I was blissfully karaoke free. Bars never have nights devoted to it. I have no younger family here to suffer it at birthday parties with. All was good and well in the world, knowing that karaoke was safely being performed behind closed doors.

Then there was Haiti. If it was wasn’t for the disaster in Haiti then I may never have sung, may never have fallen into the spiral of nori-bang addiction, from which I feel there is no way back.

I should explain. To raise funds for the tragedy Neill, a friend of mine, organised a singing competition at a particularly large nori-bang. A nori-hall if you will. To generate much needed cash we were to sing in front of each other, and the worst bit was, we had to pay for this ritual humiliation.

I felt sure the last thing homeless, starving people wanted was a bunch of foreigners in Korea taking apart other people’s musical back catalogues on their behalf, so I suggested just giving the money, but people seemed to think that made me some kind of miserable bastard, and so I signed up. I agreed to go along, thinking I would hang at the back of the room and ride out the whole experience, drink myself into a stupor and listen to my iPod, to music how it should be sung.

Sadly it wasn’t to be. I was seen, trying not to be seen. I was told I had to choose a song, or the song would be chosen for me. Fearing an hour on stage having to sing Bohemian Rhapsody in its entirety, I looked frantically for the fire exits. Why couldn’t they show us before we started? Surely it’s more use to know your way out of a 3 story building than a piece of metal suspended 2 miles above the ground?

During my scanning I found no way out, but I did see a friend was doing the same. He looked panicked, frightened, as if he’d just been told he was to be tortured to death unless he could fix a rubix cube in the next 5 minutes. I had found my companion. We both had nowhere to run.

I sloped over to Matt and asked him if he wanted to go through the experience together. Brothers in arms on a long road to ruin. (You see what I’m doing with these links?) He agreed and so we selected a song. It was to be ‘Copa Cabana.’ It was to become our signature. When Korea is long gone, we’ll always have the Copa.

We battled through, not once but twice. We were so bad we ‘won’ last place, and so were asked to perform again. I had no hesitation. I’d been through to the other side. (Incidentally, there’s over 10 songs called the other side, must be a good place to go) I’d looked fear in the face and laughed out of key at it. We were heroes and there was nothing anybody could do to stop us.

It’s hard to explain why nori-bang has captured me, whilst karaoke has left me feeling born to run (I admit that was tenuous) Perhaps it’s the fact it’s in a room, away from prying eyes. Perhaps it’s the fact there’s no night clubs in Chuncheon, or rather there are night clubs, but most don’t allow foreigners in. I can only think they’re scared of making a profit, because on the few times I’ve made it inside, they have been cavernous holes devoid of life or atmosphere. After drinking and talking in bars, I like to listen and dance to good music. Nori-bang has filled that vacuum.

Maybe, it’s just because for that night, in own mind at least, I’m a rock and roll star.

Since this was published Lewis and Matt have become regulars on the Nori-bang circuit, singing along terribly to various genres of music. The most eventful being renditions of Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai, as it involves moving furniture around the room in a desperate effort to recreate the video. To recognise their efforts in pushing back the boundaries of nori-bang, Lewis and Matt have been awarded numerous hangovers and Sundays filled with regret.

This Blog Won't Be Cheap

In England my trips to the mechanics generally go as follows:

“You see the problem is your carburettor is disconnected from your left oesophagus.”
“Sounds like a medical problem.”
“And if you want it fixing you’re going to have to get a new grease alligator to fix onto to your manhole kahuna.”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I can do it, but you’ll have to come back last Tuesday.”
“I want to leave here.”
“You see the problem with these things is that koala ectoplasm isn’t what it used to be. I’m going to have to charge you for the manhours, and with the Phillipino Peso at such a low rate well... it’ll be costly.”

And so it continues until my eyes glaze over and I offer my bank card in meek surrender, knowing that I won’t be able to afford food for another three weeks.

In Korea that hasn’t been a problem. I don’t have a car, and I have no plans to get one. Mainly because I won’t be here long enough, but also because driving seems to be acceptable as part of multi tasking. Drivers switch between lanes at will, generally whilst they concentrate on talking on the phone, watching their in car TV, checking their shoes for dirt marks, generally anything as long as it takes their minds off the distraction of the other half tonne chunks of metal driving at 50 next to them.

The low point for me was when a taxi driver fell asleep when heading towards a parked up truck. I woke him with a vigorous shake, pointed at the truck and sat back shaking my head in anger. He simply shrugged and looked rather miffed that I’d interrupted his power nap.

Still, that is a small price to pay for not having to visit the dreaded mechanics. I have, however, come into possession of a scooter. I’m looking after it for a friend of mine whilst he takes some time to see his family in the States. It helps me get around, usually whilst swerving from oncoming cars, but still I’ve managed to stay alive thus far. Although at times I have felt like I’m in a real life version of the frogger computer game.

Now, whilst my knowledge of car engineering is admittedly poor it’s not my worst quiz topic. I’m far more ignorant about the inner workings of women, Indo-Polynesian tribal languages, and scooters. So there was great panic when my scooter stopped working. This meant only one thing; a trip to the mechanics.

I arrived at Win Bike earlier today, and whilst there was no opportunity to enter any competitions, there was the familiar sight of a man in oiled overalls. Generally this is followed by a look of disdain, but this man smiled, wandered over and pulled my scooter into his shop.

I followed him experiencing the age old waves of nausea. Expect this time I couldn’t communicate anything. I was truly at his mercy. No longer could I mutter ‘£37,845 seems a bit steep’ before being shot back into place. It might not do anything, but at least I can feel I’ve put up a fight.

He opened the bike up and pulled out numerous parts, of which I have no idea of the names. One of them looked like a belt. He flexed this until it broke, before showing it to me and saying ‘broken.’ The walls started to close in again. I knew this feeling and there was nothing I could do to stop it. He had me at ‘mmmmm, broken.’ I was his toy now, to play with and toss away at will, with a monstrous invoice following soon after.

He started to replace the old parts with slightly shinier versions. He took a nut wobbled it about in front of me. When he replaced it with a new nut, his left hand held it firm so when he tried to wobble it again, it wouldn’t. This was going to cost me. I was going to cry; I could feel the tear ducts welling up.

So, when the whole ordeal was over, 20 minutes later, I was amazed. 45,000won, £25 in real money. £25 for new parts and labour. That would buy me a crushing handshake and a ‘this car needs scrapping’ in England. I couldn’t believe it, and so I scootered home just as fast as my polished up moped allowed, before he realised it was a horrible mistake and he needed to come after me for the remaining 90%.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a knock at the door.

Never Again Land

On the Saturday just gone I, along with 16 friends, took a trip to Everland. For those not in the know, it’s a theme park about an hour out of Seoul. The website boasts of it being the ‘4^th best theme park in the world.’ The official Korean tourist website were obviously less impressed. They have it down as the ‘4^th best theme park in the Asia-pacific region.’ Trip advisor had it down as the ‘4^th best theme park an hour out of Seoul, called Everland.’ It was difficult to know who to believe.

Either way I boarded the coach excitedly and arrived at the resort feeling the same way. My students were jealous I was going. They’d told me about a mythical ride I simply had to find; they weren’t sure of the name, but they were certain it had the word ‘Eagle’ in it.

(I couldn't find a good picture about queues, so this is my tenuous best)

I’d read stories of beautiful sunshine, only ever interrupted by chocolate flavoured rain that didn’t leave you wet; stories of a Shangri-La of fun, where the only problem was how people could ever cope with leaving such a place, knowing that they would never again be that happy. It was to be a trip to a place where dreams come true, like Disney World, but without the need to remortgage your house to pay for the rickets.

Our already low entrance fee was even lower than Koreans paid, thanks to a promotion on the website that offered reduced prices for foreigners. The paper said up to 4 people could enjoy reductions of 8,000won, and that up to 3 of those people could be Korean. That led to surreal touting on the front gate.

“Waegukin, (foreigner) waegukin here, only 4,000won. Get your waegukins before they sell.”

When inside the park the group split into splinter cells, all with different wants and needs for the day. Mine was to see the Safari, and damned if I was going to take into consideration my friends on this one. I dragged them through the hoards of people to the new Safari ride, on the premise that the animals would be more active in the morning. Friends protested. They wanted to visit Friendly Monkey Valley, but I assured them the monkeys would be friendly and active all day. The Safari had to be reached.

Sadly it wasn’t to be. The queue was 150 minutes long. 150 minutes. That’s enough time to get a bus to Seoul and back, enough time to study for a genetics PhD and breed my own animals.

However, help was on its way in the form of a Q-pass. I always thought he was a rapper in the early 90s, but the literature assured me that this was a place where, for a small free, one could procure a digital ticket. This would give you a time to return to the ride, thus removing the need to queue. I was about to buy one when I saw my ride time was May 24^th, 2012, 06:30. I skulked off to Monkey Valley. Needless to say the monkeys were asleep.

This formed the basis of the day; queue after queue after queue; queues to get in other queues. I’m English, so I’m good at queuing, but this was too much even for a man of my line following abilities. The line for the biggest rollercoaster (one of only 2 coasters in the park) was 2 hours, the queue for the log flume, 100 minutes. A log flume is supposed to be a ride you go on at the end of the day when you have 10 minutes to kill. Essentially it’s a poor quality roller coaster that gets you soaking wet, yet I was expected to spend 6000 seconds of my life waiting for it.

One ride was called the Mystery Mansion. Here we queued for 30 minutes before being taken into a room. Success at last, and after only half an hour. Sadly not, the lights dimmed and a gargoyle screamed at us in Korean. Then we were moved into the second part of the queue.

One ride had us moving around a house in orderly fashion for 40 minutes. When we reached the end of the line we left the building via the back door.

Bumper cars had a wait for an hour, the two cable cars that connect the far ends of the park 40 minutes each. In desperation I turned to the arcades. I put 500won into a machine so I could shoot some endangered fish on the game ‘Ocean hunter,’ but a screen came up telling me the game would not start for 25 minutes.

Part of the problem is a lack of rides combined with a huge amount of people. Everland has 10 rides that I would consider proper rides, and not carnival attractions. That combined with 7,500,000 visitors a year (20,548 people on an average day) means a lot of people are wanting to go on not many rides. In contrast, England’s biggest theme park is Alton Towers. That attracts 2,500,000 people a year and has 8 roller coasters, with over 30 rides.

Yet the area of Everland is considerably bigger, which leaves a lot of space. The Zoo doesn’t take up much of this, considering the exhibit sizes. 3 polar bears are kept in an area not too much bigger than an average child’s paddling pool.

The vast majority of the park is devoted to gift shops, all selling entirely the same things, teddy bears, animal themed clothes and inflatable hammers that leave most adults with a desire to smash the child owners with a real carpentry tool.

Two themed areas of the park are devoted entirely to shops and food outlets, all with fanciful names, but all selling fried unidentifiable meat on a stick, or popcorn.

Over the years many people have done their utmost to create heaven on earth, and so in this respect Everland is original. The creators have made purgatory right here in South Korea, right down the finer details, all expect the waits for heaven aren’t quite as long.