Occasional Moments of Brilliance

Noraebang

By occasionalmomentsofbrilliance on August 6, 2012

Anxiously I descended the neon lit steps of the drab looking post-war era concrete building in Incheon. I was struggling to remember the last time I had sung anything outside of the comfort of my car with the windows rolled up. The only memory I had took me back to the days of high school choir performances. Any hopes that I harbored of being able to disappear into the background were dashed when we entered into our room, which was a semicircle of couches with a table in the center, disco ball, and giant screen dominating one wall…it was about the size of my kitchen back home. My insecurity quickly evaporated once the tunes began to flow. I belted out ‘Proud Mary’ and sang along on a few duets. By the end of the evening, I was hooked. I found the ubiquitous Noraebang (literally, singing room) in every city, sometimes on nearly every street corner in even the smallest towns in South Korea.