In South Korea, one of the common forms of entertainment for 14-year-olds in the early 2000s was PC bang and Norae bang. Korean students were always under a considerable amount of pressure for their school results, mid-term, and end-term exams. After these exams were over, it was a ritual to hit the noraebang; one would pay between 5000 won to 10,000 won, which was covered by most teenagers' allowancesIt was expected for the noraebang owner to give an extra time, at least 10 minutes or, if one was lucky, a whole extra hour.

Often, the room provided a tiny yet powerful space to release all the teenage energy. When it came to the singing part, the higher the note one could hit, the better. For the boys, cleanly completing Steelheart's 'She's Gone' was the ultimate honor. For girls, it was often Hyungjung Kim's songs which were famous for crazy high notes on the verse. These were the songs that you take on at the peak of the noraebang session, impressing your friends and possibly your 'love' interest.

It's funny how most of the songs were (and still are) about romantic relationships, heartbreaks, betrayals, and so on. Although at the time my friends and I were starting to have some butterfly feelings about others and were beginning to have a very rudimentary mimicry of dating rituals, we definitely did not know what love or relationships were about. Every single room, teenagers were singing their hearts out, along to lyrics that were often in very passionate and strong terms and by no means comprehensible.

There were some songs that were more relatable to use though. Cherry Filter and Jaurim's songs were always included in our set. At the time, Korea was importing a lot of 'modern music genres', including rock music (I will talk about Seo Teji at some point). Apart from the fact that these were the bands that had a female vocalist so our vocal range fit their songs, they had songs about animals (Flying Duck, Romantic cat) and wishful thinking (Magic Carpet Ride), which frankly were much more in tune with what our world was about.

Noraebang was useful for many Koreans around that time - a certain amount of catharsis or freedom, albeit managed. Next time I go to Korea, I would like to visit one of those Noraebangs. It's been years since I sang anything, and I miss singing without caring.