Not empty at all - A cultural exerience

In Episode 10, Season 1 of "How I met your Mother", Ted loses his memory spectacularly. In one of the flashbacks of the disastrous night, we see him asking a girl if she knew that "Karaoke was not invented by someone named Kerry Okie, but is Japanese for Empty Orchestra". In Korea, we have a Norebangs and norebanging is anything but an empty experience.
The basic concept of a norebang is that you can rent a room with your own big screen TV, microphones, disco lights and a songbook filled with oldies, newies and a few creations that should never have left the dark corners of their creators' twisted minds.

Singing with my best friend.

You rent above-mentioned rooms by the hour and the cost varies depending on the size of the room and how long you want to use it. The longer you stay, the cheaper it gets. Sometimes the fee includes a few bottles of beer, a bowl with some seaweed and a jug of water.

What I like about norebanging is that you don't make a drunken fool of yourself in front of a bunch of strangers. You do, however get the chance to embarrass youself in front of your friends. Norebangs are good for any occasion. I've spent birthdays there, singing Abba songs. I have attended farewells there, singing various nostalgic versions of "Leaving on a jetplane." Last year I ended my Christmas there, with some of my most important people, blaring out "Last Christmas", "All I want for Christmas is you" and a few other seasonal classics.

Korea has this weird law where, in public places, the music playing should not match the music videos on TV. Thus to avoid any trouble, the norebangs layer the songs over random videos. It is not uncommon to sing the following:

with this as the background video:

It is indeed very surreal sometimes.

Humming the "Hmmm"-part of "Paint it black."

There are also a lot of spelling / word errors, my favourite being a line from "Yesterday" by the Beatles: "Suddenly, I'm not half the MOON I used to be..." At the end of the song, you get your score. The score is usually directly proportional to your level of "suckness". The worse you sing, the higher your score will be.

Norebanging is by far my favourite activity in Korea and my life will be very empty without it. Because in Korea, EVERYONE gets an equal opportunity to be a rockstar! (Even if you have to pay for it by the hour...)