Karaoke, the Universal Language

Choi, 27, handed one to Allie Shaw, 32, and together they kept a slow beat: Ching, ching, ching .

"These add a little flavor," said Choi, after Lee ended on a high note.

Soon the group called it a night. As people gathered purses and put down microphones, Lee stood near the door to thank his students for their "support" and to offer a revelation: He chose the Platters because his immigrant mother had loved the song. But knowing only Chinese, she had lent her own meaning to the lyrics.

"It sounded to her like . . . 'salt fish,' " he said. "So she translated it into, 'Where can I get my salt fish?' "

The students smiled.

In a smaller room across the hall, seven new friends paged through fat binders of song lists in Vietnamese and English. A few cans of Corona and a water pitcher sat on a coffee table. The light was low, the strobe light off.

Members of a Vietnamese "meet group" who had previously socialized over ice skating and wine tasting, they were now bonding over song.

Scenes of azure skies and golden fields appeared on the television.

"Oh, this is the George Bush thing!" shouted one man in a crisp gray button-down. The comment drew puzzled laughs. But when the words started, everyone chimed in.

This land is your land,

This land is my land

Sitting close to the television in a red sweater and rhinestone-encrusted sandals, Duong Kim Ngoc, 56, the group's unofficial ringleader, sang with gusto. Ngoc was a pro: A teacher of Vietnamese, she owns a machine that lets her do karaoke on her television every morning before her classes.

"You warm up the vocal cords," she said, adding that karaoke is also useful for teaching the six tonal sounds of Vietnamese.

At Cafe Muse, it was a way for Vietnamese people to connect.

"It's a miracle that I can still speak Vietnamese," said Danh Tran, a Fair Oaks real estate agent who grew up in the United States and has visited Vietnam. He leaned back and considered this and the scene around him, as if searching for higher meaning. Karaoke, he concluded, was a way for them to feel "back home again."

The screen filled with people riding old-fashioned bicycles on streets lined with low-slung stores, a video for the Vietnamese song "Saigon, Vietnam."

"It's not called Saigon anymore. It's called Ho Chi Minh City," Tran said. "So when we sing it, we think about the old times."

Old times meant different things. Ngoc flipped pages in a song folder, searching for an oldie whose name she could not remember. After a few minutes, there it was: "Nguu Lang Chuc Nu." The lyrics told the story of lovers split by family and society -- a theme common in Vietnamese music, Ngoc said.

"It's the typical way in Vietnam before," said Bao-Loc Nguyen, 43, a Fairfax City employee. "The parents picked how you should be married. The woman had no say in it. If your parents don't approve it, it's like the whole village doesn't approve it."

But it was close to midnight in Annandale, and there was little time for wistfulness or regrets. The Vietnamese group's members had one more destination. They were going dancing at a Latin club.