Time to Re-engage – Why a Media Studies Degree is the Academic Equivalent of Leprosy – The UK’s Take on Karaoke booths

A complete blog blackout that lasted for three+ months, then. Why? Well, a job that began as challenging before becoming difficult to bear and ultimately soul-destroying has something to do with it. Yes, the job outlined on the previous entry is the one I mean. This is not the place to go into specifics into why I found it as bad as I did – I could go on endlessly and have already done so to friends and family – suffice it to say that half a term there was more than enough for me, and I left shortly before Christmas.

This now of course leaves me, once again, without steady employment, living at home and drifting in an ever more erratic manner, career-wise. As a sign of how much I’ve regressed over these last few months, I’m going back to the same temp position I was in before I started at the school. Yes, the one I was somewhat uncharitable about, interviewing people over the phone because that’s apparently the only temp position anywhere in Colchester that pays more the £6.50 an hour. Marvellous.

Still, I can either sit here and moan about my circumstances, or do something in order to change them – to that end, I intend to embark on a hearty campaign of writing begging letters to any nearby publishers, radio stations and other local media organisations to see if any of them are willing to grant me an unpaid work experience position. See kids, I’ve one piece advice for anyone entertaining the idea of pursuing a media related A-level or university qualification – for the love of God, don’t. At least, don’t if you’re anywhere near as socially dysfunctional and bone-idle as I am.

The other great quest for me to achieve in the fullness of time is to learn how to drive. Yes, I am looking to part with between £500 and £600 in order to join the massed ranks of motorists, sat inside their air-polluting, society-fragmenting, death-dealing killing machines. Should anyone find this labelling somewhat harsh, I should add that I’ve spent the last two years as a frequent cyclist, and let me tell you, the rush of self-righteousness one experiences when perched atop two wheels as opposed to four is positively intoxicating.

All that’s set to change though, given enough time, patience and money on my part. It’s just the added convenience of being able to transport things like shopping, instruments, friends and loved ones around more easily that’s the main draw for me, hopeless altruist that I am. That and the thought of being able to one day own my own old-school (preferably mid-70’s model) VW Beetle. See, my helpless descent into auto-fetishism has begun already…

Aside from formulating future plans, however, these past two days saw me once again in the company of old uni chums Mark and Sophie, as I journeyed down to Brighton for an evening of bizarre cooking (quesedillas and okonomiyaki made by my own (due to the copious amounts of wine and, um, refreshment of another kind) somewhat shaky hand. Followed by several rounds of perhaps one of the most entertaining uses of a PlayStation 2 ever, gameshow-sim Buzz! The Music Edition. Comes highly recommended.

The real fun to be had was the Saturday night however, at Lucky Voice, one of the UK’s first Japanese-style karaoke booth establishments. You book your room beforehand (way beforehand, such is the popularity of the place, it would seem), turn up and settle yourself and half a dozen or so others into your own private boudoir, where you can make as much horrendous noise as you like without fear of upsetting any complete strangers with your atonal take on ‘singing’.

Mark and myself were old hands at this of course – in Japan you’re never more than 20 minutes drive from a karaoke booth parlour, and as such we’d both been to a fair few. Aside from the somewhat gloomy décor (underlit corridors of black illuminated by deep reds) and the very welcome addition of a bar area for smoking and mingling when required, the whole enterprise seemed to be a fair reproduction of what we were both already used to.

The only major departure however, had to be in terms of the price. Two hours for six people at one of these places will set you back upwards of 90 quid altogether. Once you start to factor in drinks, you’re easily looking at £150+. Nice though it was to be able to quaff Kirin Lager for the first time since summer last year, the thought that each bottle came with a £3.80 price tag was unfortunately somewhat sobering.

All in all, pleasant though the evening was, and helpful and friendly though the staff at the place were, I couldn’t help but think they’d missed the point of the experience in a couple of key ways. Firstly, karaoke booths in Japan are impulse activities – that is, you’ll be wandering (most likely drunk) through a busy city at night with friends and/or co workers – someone suggests karaoke, and in you pop. Of course, on the other hand Osaka’s probably got more than a hundred alone; the London one is probably overbooked as much as it is because there’s so little competition and they’re still so much of a novelty in the UK.

Secondly, most of the karaoke parlours in Japan are purely functional – strip-lit corridors, maybe some tacky UV light projection in the booth itself and a sparse reception are generally par for the course, in line with the idea that it’s a universal pastime which can be enjoyed by different kinds of people at different times of day – schoolchildren in the late afternoon, families in the early evening, and businessmen and hard-drinking good-for-nothing gaijin in the wee hours. All are welcome. Lucky Voice, on the other hand, is almost exclusively pitching itself to the urban, aspirant hipster type first and foremost – but then again, I suppose that’s only natural at this stage, when it’s still a new fangled thing.

It still brought to mind though, what I was discussing with fellow JET and current Japan resident Sarah on her recent visit to the UK, namely that Japan seems to be forever chasing western-style fashions, be it clothes, music and such like, while the west is perpetually falling over itself trying to appropriate the latest ker-azy cultural phenomenon coming from the Far East – yet somehow, the two always seem to miss each other. The universal, mass market, cheap and cheerful appeal of populist Japanese icons such as bento boxes, conveyor belt sushi restaurants and karaoke booths suddenly become gentrified, swollen in price, slick in delivery and designed to appeal to a very narrow, affluent audience.