Karaoke Outing With Two Songbirds

Two months ago, I began to plan a karaoke outing with Sis Annie and Albert P. The main reason was to have fellowship among us as Calvary Care Home (CCH) volunteers outside the church and CCH buildings. In addition to that, as I had discovered their passion for singing, I thought this entertaining activity would help to relax my sister and brother in Christ who always busied themselves with serving others. Even though I was not a karaoke lover at all, I enjoyed listening to music and attending live concerts.

In my surroundings, the best person to consult about this kind of recreation was my colleague Chew who had been a KTV goer since her varsity days. Without hesitation, she recommended me a place at Bandar Hilir.

This whole month, we have to conduct replacement classes every Saturday in order to enjoy a four-day holiday that precedes Aidilfitri next month. Last Saturday, I only had morning sessions. Since I would be in town, I was keen to hang out somewhere in the afternoon. I tried to contact Sis Annie but she was too busy to even answer my phone calls. When I told Albert and Chew respectively about my tentative programme, they were very interested as well. Finally, I had two companions who did not know each other.

Chew was so eager to join me that she drove all the way from the Lendu campus as soon as she finished her lecture, to pick me at Hang Tuah. Since I was no longer based in Alor Gajah, we saw each other much less often than before. But we became closer in friendship and found occasions to meet up for meals. When I had first known her in the end of 2005, she was a happy single like me. Now she was already a mother of a cute infant girl and pregnant with a second child.

We were ten minutes later than our appointment time with Albert at 2pm. There was not any buggy car to give us a free ride along the jetty. So "three" of us took this opportunity to stroll and fill our eyes with the nice view of the Straits of Malacca.

Believe it or not, this was only my third karaoke outing with friends in three decades of my whole life. My usual KTV was a mobile and solitary one--When I played pop songs or worship songs in my car and sang along while driving.

Albert had already rushed to Gogo KTV box at 1.30pm after sending the CCH boys to the tuition centre at Bukit Beruang. I jokingly asked him by SMS to start singing his favorite song "A Small Flower" which had won him numerous trophies at singing competitions during his younger days. When Chew and I reached the reception, we learned that he had already been singing ecstatically almost ten songs in one of the rooms alone!

My ears had witnessed and were used to Albert's powerful voice whenever he praised the Lord, laughed, gave a talk, sneezed, shouted at the boys to discipline them, etc. Chew who met and listened to him for the first time was very impressed by his singing talent.

She told me that her mother who also loved singing very much would be even more excited to be there. Why? Because she would definitely appreciate those Chinese folk songs much more than we did.

I had only known Chew as someone who liked to listen to pop songs on the radio and hang out at karaoke. This time when she held the microphone and opened her mouth, I was amazed at her professional singing skill. She must have inherited the gene from her mother who had even taken up singing lessons. Not only she was familiar with many songs which were popular in the past, she could also sing some of the latest hits. She was too shy to let me take a picture of her while singing.

Sitting between these two songbirds, I actually would have preferred to just gaze at them and clap my hands like a fan in admiration of their performances. "Unfortunately", as an organiser, I also needed to participate in producing some monotonous musical sounds with my sombre voice. And the worse thing was that I hardly remembered the melody of most of the songs I had selected myself. Albert was kind enough to console me with comments like "Your pronunciation is clear, your tempo is correct, you just need to add more emotion and have more practice..."

From this year onwards, it seems that karaoke is going to be a "go, go!" activity for me.