(PICTURE: Two of my favorite students getting their karaoke on)
Karaoke was amazing this morning. Basically how it works here (and in many places in the states) is you book a private room in a karaoke club and have waiters cater drinks and food to you. The room was about thirty feet deep with a giant horseshoe couch facing a television. Two microphones are attached to the TV with long wires that are passed to whoever is up to sing.
As soon as we entered our room a few of our students broke out into Vietnamese pop songs. When they finished singing the karaoke program gave them a rating on the screen. We were told that if you got a 1oo you got a free prize. Well, the cool thing about being a teacher here is you can do no wrong. Despite winning the Mt. Pleasant Elementary School vocal music award in 5th Grade and singing in Carnegie Hall in 7th grade, I have one of the worst voices ever. Frankly I'm pretty sure I'm tone deaf--which on a side note makes learning Vietnamese that much harder. Well, to these kids I was Frank Sinatra. I picked up a mic and joined one of the students singing a Vietnamese song and the kids went crazy. Next Ryan and I sang Joan Jett's "I Love Rock And Roll" and had all the kids up and clapping. It was by far the closest I'll ever come to being a rock star. Even stranger than having people actually like hearing me sing was when the karaoke program gave us a score of 100. It was like winning both showcase showdowns.
Well, everything was going great until the most awkward moment ever. Ryan and I had scouted the karaoke song book and pointed out a bunch of good songs to each other. Being from NJ I naturally pointed out that they had Springsteen. Specifically they had "Born in the USA." Not telling me, Ryan programmed the song in and in a few minutes it was our turn to sing. Immediately I knew this was going to be a very very bad song choice. For those of you who are confused why, it's probably because you never studied the lyrics to this classic song. Let me save you the google search and write down the first two stanzas:
"BORN DOWN IN A DEAD MAN'S TOWN
THE FIRST KICK I TOOK WAS WHEN I HIT THE GROUND
YOU END UP LIKE A DOG THAT'S BEEN BEAT TOO MUCH
TIL YOU SPEND HALF YOUR LIFE JUST COVERING UP
BORN IN THE USA (X 4)
(HERE IS WHERE THE PROBLEM IS)
I GOT IN A LITTLE HOMETOWN JAM
AND SO THEY PUT A RIFLE IN MY HANDS
SENT ME OFF TO VIETNAM
TO GO AND KILL THE YELLOW MAN."
Yes, the lyric is "TO GO AND KILL THE YELLOW MAN." Not exactly the line you want to be singing to a roomful of Vietnamese kids.
Prior to that stanza all the kids were singing along with us and belting out the chorus. Then the words came on to the screen and Ryan and I looked at each other and completely froze. We just stopped singing as the words flashed across the screen. Luckily I don't really think anyone-- except one fellow American in the room--understood what was being sung. Regardless it made for one of the most, if not the most, awkard moments ever....in the history of time.
