| Page 4 of 5 < > |
International Nights
Juan Carlos Hector and Diana Ram salsa on the dance floor at Cecilia's Club and Lounge in Arlington.
(Mark Finkenstaedt for The Washington Post)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
BOLLYWOOD2NIGHThttp:/
Thirty-some years ago, Sumiko Abe met a shy but dashing man at a karaoke bar on Wisconsin Avenue.
New to Washington and the United States, the two -- both recent transplants from Japan -- married, moved to Woodbridge and fell into a habit of picking up the old microphones once or twice a year.
Fitting then, that at 10 on a Saturday night, two hours before his 60th birthday, Koichi Abe is being serenaded in a karaoke club in Annandale.
"I'm just a woman falling in loooove," croons Sumiko Abe, 57, as a campy, '70s-style music video featuring beach scenes and gauzy cinematography plays on a giant TV behind her.
Gray-haired Koichi Abe beams.
He thought tonight was going to be a quiet one, but earlier when the couple arrived at a Korean restaurant down the street, their two sons appeared, along with 10 colleagues from the travel agency where he works.
Now the whole group is crowded into a private room at Cafe Muse, pouring over a three-ring binder of song titles and filling a center coffee table with Heineken cans. It's just them and the door is closed, which is how it works at Cafe Muse, a place a passerby might mistake for a typical strip-mall sub shop.
Inside, though, past the fluorescent dining area, is a line of darkened rooms, each outfitted with a big-screen television and a pair of microphones that sit ready for the magic (and torment) to happen. If not for the waiters delivering beers, each alcove could double as the basement of someone's parents' house circa 1983: low-slung leather couches, linoleum floors, a wall of mirrors and a disco ball rigged up to flash in time with the music.
Annandale isn't nicknamed "Little Korea" for nothing. The owners of Cafe Muse are Korean, as are many of their clients, but the songbooks come in five languages, including English, Vietnamese and Chinese.
Two rooms down from the Abes, Bobby Caudill, who's also celebrating a birthday tonight -- the goateed Sterling resident is 45 years young -- can be heard belting out an impassioned rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody" as his friends howl in delight. "We've got third-graders at home, so it's not like we're gonna go out to clubs anymore. We thought this would be something different," Caudill's buddy Rick Davis explains of their karaoke adventure.
Sumiko Abe, who owns a sushi restaurant on New York Avenue NW and wears a Redskins kimono the Friday before every game, also prefers to sing American songs. But her husband's young co-workers, most of whom emigrated from Japan within the past few years, pick Japanese pop songs and perform with an outsized verve that makes most "American Idol" contestants look comatose by comparison.
