Karaoke and the Construction of Identity

Just finished reading the essay "Karaoke and the Construction of Identity" by Casey Man Kong Lum in the book Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life.

Excerpted from Lum’s 1996 book, In Search of a Voice: Karaoke and the Construction of Chinese Identity in America [which is an ethnography of “how karaoke is used in the expression, maintenance, and (re)construction of social identity as part of the Chinese American experience” (122)], this chapter in Technicolor provides an introduction and overview of Lum’s project and findings. Lum, in this essay, “examine[s] how karaoke may be engaged in a great variety of ways, and how varying social meanings can be constructed though the use of karaoke in different everyday contexts” (122). More specifically, Lum begins the essay by establishing the ways in which karaoke is a cultural practice, a form of communication and interaction among people.

The central question Lum asks is, “What cultural practice does karaoke embody?” (124).

After a brief section outlining the social origins of Karaoke, from its origins to Japan to its appearance in the U.S., Lum then goes on to discuss “karaoke decorum”—“a set of conventions for maintaining and judging what is to be considered socially appropriate [as well as what is inappropriate or socially unacceptable] behavior in a karaoke scene” (126). Next, Lum discusses the ways in which those who participate in karaoke are producers as well as readers. After these more general discussions of karaoke, Lum then turns to writing specifically about the three distinct types of karaoke cultural practices he observed in various Chinese American communities. These three distinct practices emerged from three distinct interpretive communities, distinguished by such things as their location, class status, and immigrant status. In particular, in this short chapter Lum analyzes the way in which karaoke embodied expressions of ethnicity, class, and gendered practices within these three communities.

Lum's analysis of karaoke will definitelyusefuluable/usefull to my own work on drag kings, especially to thinking about Asian/American drag kings and Asian/American drag king fans.

Aside from providing me with language of how to talk about kinging as a cultural practice, Lum's attention to "karaoke decorum" serves as a reminder to me to think about "king decorum," not only in terms of expectations of performers, of audience members, but also the expectations as performers interact with one another, audience members interact with one another, as well as how performers and audience members co-mingle.

In addition, I really liked the way Lum structured his analysis. Although he was able to identify three disctinct interpretive communities, he didn't use these three communities to organize/drive his analysis, instead he used them to help illustrate the variety of ways in which karaoke cultural practices become embodied in various contexts, highlighting those expressions. Doing so helps to bring the focus away from the "individual" and to the oppressive systems and institutions individuals find themselves within. To be clear, Lum never asserts that these individuals lack agency (quite the opposite, actually), but rather calls attention to the fact that there is a bigger-picture that must be considered.

Overall, Lum's work was a much-needed reminder that as I continue my work, I need to think of the nuances and depths of communities and of cultural practices. There is no one way of karaoking, or kinging--there are only the ways that we have come to establish, for whatever reasons. What's important is to uncover those reasons, understand how they've come to establish currently existing "norms," evaluate the im/balance of power in those "norms," and consider how we might, based on altered reasons and thinking work to shift and transform established "norms" to express and embody anti-racist, anti-sexist, and overall anti-oppressive practices.