242 Karaoke

Do people in your culture like to sing? Do you like to sing in front of other people, or do you prefer to sing in private where nobody else can hear? Jesse Edbrooke and ShaoLan discuss the phenomenon of Karaoke and particularly how it has taken off and expanded into many different forms throughout Asia! Jesse describes some of the different private Karaoke lounges which are available in Taiwan, which allow you to sing with your friends in a relaxed environment, with food, drink and sometimes even extra instruments included! Singing together can be a real team-building exercise and ShaoLan even goes as far as to advise anyone trying to do business deals with Chinese companies that singing Karaoke together is the best way build up mutual trust and seal the deal. As a bonus, also hear a clip of a Transition song, written about their first experience of Karaoke in Asia!

In Chinese, the way to say Karaoke is “卡拉 OK”! It’s a direct phonetic translation from the Japanese word “Karaoke” and uses the words 卡 which means “card” and 拉 which means “to pull” with the English word “OK” on the end! When you 卡拉 you will be “OK”!