(Hong Kong) I don’t mean to brag, but there’s a pretty famous restaurant in Iowa City called “Diamond Dave’s” (oh, you’ve heard of it. Yeah, that’s what I thought). Anyway, they have a weekly karaoke contest, and once in 2000, I made it to the Championship Finals with my rendition of Devo’s ‘Whip It.’ (Too bad Celine Deon showed up at the last minute to win….yeah, she’s a good friend.)

Well, in Asia, on the other side of the world, where everything is opposite—including the direction the water swirls in the toilet—there’s a bit of a difference in what is required to be considered “The King of Karaoke.” In Asia, where they take their karaoke very seriously, it’s not a funny thing you do at a birthday party or drunk at the bar with your friends, its practically a religion. From Japan to China it becomes apparent how serious they are when you see the multiple storied karaoke bars with hundreds of private rooms with large screen TV’s, Dolby surround speaker systems, and wireless mics.

Where I come from, the more terrible of a singer you are—that is to say the louder, more obnoxious and more off key—the more you are celebrated by the masses as a karaoke champion (which is also the reason the “masses” are usually drunk off their gords while listening to karaoke).

Well, in Asia, unbenounced to me, the rules of karaoke are different and to be the ‘King of Karaoke’ you—surprisingly—have to actually be able to sing. From the streets of Kyoto to the alleys of Shanghai, kids flood the karaoke bars each night and sing like angels to the tunes of Avril Lavigne Rain, Bon Jovi, Fai Wong, and Sammi Cheung among others—and in most cases you’d believe the pop stars where actually there.

Knowing all this did not stop me, my family, and a half dozen friends from Mainland China, Hong Kong, and America from visiting Neway Karaoke Club in Mong Kok. What do you sing when you have a 58-year old American couple who can’t read Chinese, a few dozen 20-ish Mainland Chinese grad students who speak English as a 2nd language, a guy from Cameroon, and a handful of American-raised twenty-somethings? The Beatles, of course.

So between choruses of ‘Let It Be’ and ‘Love Me Do’ we sipped on Carlsberg, iced milk tea, and Coke’s and sang, danced and laughed our way through five hours of karaoke. As the clock rolled passed 4am, my parent’s decided it was time to head back to the hotel. They said they stayed out so late (early) because they were having so much fun, but actually I think they couldn’t get enough of The King of Karaoke.

Stay turned for the next post: a video from our night of karaoke.