Please answer the questions below and generate two of your own.
- What do you think of Lum’s contention that “karaoke has gone beyond the simple function of entertainment to become an expression of one’s social status” in the upwardly mobile Taiwanese American community in New Jersey? How do the other case studies he presents corroborate or contest this idea?
- Lum mentions a number of different song choices made by members of the Cantonese, Taiwanese, and Malaysian interpretive communities under exploration, from opera to Elvis to enka. Are you surprised by any of these? What kinds of song choices do you make in your practice of karaoke?
- What kind of connections does Lum make between karaoke and literacy? What might be significant about these?
