Karaoke

- What?! Why? What were you supposed to do? My guide and goto guy,Tatsuya, seemed kind of confused.
- I have to figure out what japanese people do. Can you help me?

A couple of hours later we were on the bus on our way downtown. We had decided to go to a Karaoke place near the center of Hirakata City and I had made a specific request to Tatsuya that he would show me a Karoke place where we wouldn't run into alot of ryugakusee (foreign exchange students).

My plan was to do participating observations in Karaoke rooms and that I would be able to try to understand the karoke-phenomenon from the native point of view. Tatsuya had agreed to be my translator for the evening and in someways us as a duo seemed to cover an emic and etic perspecitve.

Tatsuya found my idea of entering strangers karaokerooms to be weird. Apparently it is considered somewhat odd to make contact with people in other karaokerooms if you don't know them. Another of my japanese friends explained it a bit more specific the day after:

- It is only drunk foreign students that enter other peoples karaoke rooms.

If we would have had something similar in Sweden it would probably be seen as the perfect place for meeting new people. But in Japan it actually seems more socially accepted to rent a karaoke on your own then to seek contact with people that you don't know or to invite them into your room.

We arrived at the Karokeplace and a white sign with red font spelled out "Jankara" in Katakana. We rented a karaoke room (you are actually not allowed to enter the place without renting a room first).
But shortly after we've settled in the room the exploration started. I opened the door to one of the neighboring, more crowded karaoke rooms and I introduced myself and the cause of my study(Tatsuya translated).

The members of this group of people were second year university students who were on a spring break. When I started to interview them they were six or seven people but as the observation took place some of them left and others arrived.

Even though I tried to ask them a lot of question I also experienced the tricky parts of doing participating observation. They were asking most of the questions and they also wanted to take pictures with me.

After a while it got better and less exciting for them to meet a foreign student so I made the decision to not try to enter more rooms during the evening because the procedure would probably be similar. They found karaoke as a good way to release stress and tension because you can sing and be as loud as you want.

For someone who have lived in Japan it is understandable that it is not possible to be loud at home if you are living in a dorm, at your parents house or in a apartment as they did. The walls are thin...

Some of the groupmembers also were of the opinion that karaoke was appreciated by most people in Japan and that most people sang karaoke even though it probably was considered to be more popular among the young. Having a conversation with one of the employees gave a another view of the Karaoke visitors in general. Apparently the older generations more oftenly go to Karaoke during day time while the young go during the later hours of the day and therefor the younger generation does not see the "old" singing karaoke as much.