Noraebang Culture

Noraebang means song room, and the Korean form is private: you rent a small room with a screen, two microphones and a tambourine, and sing to whoever you came with rather than to a bar. They arrived from Japan around 1991 and multiplied to the point where most city blocks have several, marked by signs of musical notes, generally upstairs or down a stairwell. Payment is by the hour, and rooms almost always give extra time at the end - the service that everyone expects and nobody asks for. The machine scores each performance out of a hundred on pitch and timing, which is taken with varying seriousness. Song books carry large English, Japanese and Chinese sections. Two variants are worth knowing: coin noraebang, where you pay per song at a booth and can go alone, common near universities; and the room salons that are a different kind of business entirely and not what anyone means by noraebang.

What you actually see

• The private room - screen, two mics, tambourine, sofa.
• The scoring - a mark out of a hundred after each song.
• The bonus time - extra minutes added at the end, always.
• Coin noraebang - pay per song, fine to use alone.

When to go

Any time; most are open very late. It is what a Korean evening out ends with, after dinner and drinks.

Honest expectations

It is an ordinary commercial activity, not a cultural performance. Rooms vary from clean to shabby. Ordinary noraebang are family places; anything advertising hostesses is a different business.

Nearby

Every entertainment district - Hongdae, Gangnam, Seomyeon in Busan - is full of them.