Karaoke: After ‘Tiny Bubbles,’ It’s All Japanese

The phrase in question is “ti-ny bu-bbles.”

Harry Higashi, 70, warbled those words, all right. But, oh, no, not the rest of the English; that wouldn’t be right.

That was the pre-recorded Supremes-like back-up girls who chirped: “Makes me feel hap-py...makes me feel fi-ine.” Higashi, a Japanese-American who was born and raised in Hawaii, sings his karaoke in Japanese--thank you very much--even though he speaks only English.

In the San Gabriel Valley and elsewhere around Southern California, second- or third-generation Japanese-Americans--some of whom don’t speak or understand Japanese--are learning about a cultural craze from their ancestral homeland. And they’re doing it in Japanese. To think about singing karaoke in English, they say, is like trying to picture a geisha in a biker bar--it just doesn’t fit.

Karaoke, in which people are supplied with a microphone and recorded backup music so they can ham it up in bars and clubs, has taken off in the past 10 years in Japan.

It’s not hard to find a karaoke bar or club in America these days, either. There are more than 15,000 establishments that offer karaoke, literally “empty orchestra” in Japanese, and the industry is expected to pull in about $590 million this year, according to the Simi Valley-based Karaoke International Sing-Along Assn.

But, American karaoke is in English. Americans even mangle the word and say “carry-oki,” rather than use the Japanese pronunciation, “ca-da-o-kay” (the same way that the Japanese say “be-su-bo-ru” for “baseball”). Karaoke also is getting a bad name in the valley, where several cities--including El Monte and Arcadia--are pulling the plug on it because of crime problems. In Alhambra, a high-ranking Asian gang member was shot and killed outside a karaoke club in August.

In Japan, karaoke is just good, clean fun--a way to cut loose in a society that frowns upon looseness of any kind and considers orchestrated cheers at baseball games as a fine show of spontaneity. So karaoke classes, which also are popular in Japan, teach people how to sing--and how to get down and dirty. In Southern California, there are about 30 karaoke classes taught by Japanese instructors.

It’s more like church choir practice than down and dirty at Higashi’s Friday night karaoke class at the Japanese Cultural Institute in Pasadena. There usually are about two dozen people, who have come faithfully for the past three years.

On this night, there are 15--mostly in their 50s, 60s and 70s--squeezed into small wooden desks, awaiting a shot at the microphone. The braver ones manage a hip swivel or an eyebrow raise or even a microphone-cord flick, but most stand stiffly, never looking up from their sheet music.

Ah, but there’s nothing to fear. The instructor, Junichi (Jun) Araki, sits on a folding chair nearby, fiddling with the karaoke microphone-control knobs--a little echo here, a little boom there, and amateur warblers go from Sonny Bono to Frank Sinatra faster than they can croon, “I did it my way.”

It is Higashi’s turn, and he bows deeply to the class, work boot tapping as he waits for his cue on the cassette tape. The cue, of course, is the ukulele strum:

“Ti-ny bu-bbles....(deep breath) Yumei no yo ni, kimi to odoru..., “ (“You dance like a dream.”) he sang sweetly, if not a little off-key.

Afterward, Higashi said he has come a long way.

“When I first started,” he confessed, “I was miserable.”

Most nisei, or second-generation Japanese, find it hard to lose their inhibitions, he said.

“The nisei hold back,” said Higashi, a Pasadena resident. “They hate to sing. They’re kind of embarrassed or something . . . inhibited.”

But Higashi has turned into a karaoke junkie; he got a taste of it, and he can’t stop.

“The more you sing,” said Higashi, a retired aerospace draftsman, “the more the words come out.

“You should try it! I’m telling you! One or two nights!”

Araki, the instructor, said he understands why Japanese people and Japanese-Americans get hooked on karaoke. It’s one way for them to feel connected to their heritage. There are other ways such as the ancient arts of shodo, which is Japanese calligraphy, or ikebana, which is flower arranging. But those hobbies take years to master, aren’t as entertaining and often are done alone, Araki said.

Karaoke, on the other hand, is easy and hip. Araki teaches songs from Japan’s Top 20 hit list, which people hear on Japanese cable TV every week.

“If it becomes No. 1 in Japan,” he said, “right away, the students want to know it.”

Karaoke also bonds people from different generations, Araki said. “Before, the first generation can’t speak English, and they stay by themselves,” said Araki, who also teaches karaoke at his Rosemead home. “And the second generation sticks to their own group. Now, through karaoke, they are starting to mix.”

Second- and third-generation Japanese-Americans also are using karaoke to learn Japanese. Araki hands out lyrics in English and Japanese, and gives instructions in both languages.

“Years ago, they didn’t dare speak Japanese at school in front of their friends,” Araki said, explaining that they would be embarrassed. “Years ago, I’d never dream of something like this.”

Karaoke night is the only time that Mack Yamaguchi, 73, uses Japanese. It wouldn’t sound right in English, said Yamaguchi, a second-generation Japanese-American.

“It seems kind of crude--like getting up at a nice place and singing cowboy songs or something,” said Yamaguchi, a retired insurance salesman and Pasadena resident.

Toki Matsumoto, fresh from her turn at the karaoke class microphone, sat down to catch her breath.

“I sang ‘Aranami Taisho,’ “ said Matsumoto, 71, an Altadena resident. “Don’t ask me what it means,” she added, collapsing into hysterical laughter. (It means “master of the rough waves,” a song about a tough sailor).

Matsumoto, a second-generation Japanese-American, doesn’t speak much Japanese, so she was happy to find that most people in her Pasadena karaoke class are bilingual. She sat in on her 90-year-old mother’s Westside karaoke class but had to drop out because she couldn’t follow the Japanese very well.

Ikuko Miyashita, a first-generation Japanese, is so excited when she talks about karaoke that the words gush out, in both English and Japanese. Miyashita, 60, even has a karaoke machine at home in Altadena so she can sing with her husband. She is happy that karaoke is taking off now; when she was living in Japan 35 years ago, it wasn’t a big deal.

“Ano toki wa,” said Miyashita, a homemaker, “popular de nakatta. “ At that time, it wasn’t popular.

Now, everyone wants to do it, including 66-year-old Kiyoshi Takeda, who hadn’t sung in public since his kindergarten teacher in Japan called him up to the piano and made him solo in front of the class.

“Our club, first night, everybody shaking,” said Takeda, jumping to his feet and wobbling his knees in imitation. “No voice comes.”

Now, said Takeda, a retired Monrovia gardener: “Everybody get together and singing. Everybody very happy.”