SINGING IN LIFE’S TWILIGHT: SERIOUS KARAOKE AS EVERYDAY AGING PRACTICE IN URBAN JAPAN KOON FUNG (BENNY) TONG (B.A. (Hons.), M.A., National University of Singapore) A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY OF THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY JUNE 2018 © Copyright by Koon Fung (Benny) Tong, 2018 All Rights Reserved i ii DECLARATION I hereby declare that this thesis is my original work and has been written by me in its entirety. I have duly acknowledged all the sources of information which have been used in the thesis. This thesis has also not been submitted for any degree in any university previously. Koon Fung (Benny) Tong 4 June 2018 iii iv Acknowledgments From conceptualizing the PhD research project to distilling the immense knowledge that the academics, karaoke enthusiasts, friends and family have generously given me, I have received gracious help from many people in making this thesis come into form. In these acknowledgments, I wish to thank everyone who has contributed to my undertaking. I also ask for forgiveness in advance for any inadvertent omissions and imperfections, both in these acknowledgments and in the book as a whole. Firstly, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Roald Maliangkay, my primary supervisor at the Australian National University (ANU). Roald has been an amazing source of support not only intellectually, but also personally. Even before my admission into the PhD program at the School of Culture, History and Language (CHL) at ANU, he patiently guided me through my application process. I believe that his substantial help here was crucial in my securing of the ANU University Research Scholarship (International) stipend, and the ANU HDR Fee Remission Merit Scholarship tuition fee waiver, which provided important financial support for my PhD candidature. Roald also checked in on my personal well-being frequently throughout my candidature, and was always ready to lend a helping hand for any problems that arose in my private life. Academically, he was the best supervisor I could have hoped for. With his expertise as an ethnomusicologist, he provided highly insightful and detailed feedback on my proposals and drafts, which was instrumental in the development of the theoretical framework and narrative style of the thesis. He did so very quickly despite his heavy workload, which sped up the writing process tremendously. I cannot thank Roald enough for his enormous contribution to my research and thesis. v The other members of my PhD supervisory panel at ANU also provided important ideas and critique that were crucial in developing the research project and thesis. The creative energy and stimulating discussions during our panel meetings are still some of the most memorable moments of my candidature. They also provided much needed support individually. Drawing upon her expertise in Japanese literature and popular culture, Carol Hayes was always on hand to remind me of the many interesting ideas and processes she saw from my fieldnotes and data, in addition to patiently supporting me emotionally during some of the most trying times of the writing process. Kirin Narayan gave me much needed insights into how I could locate my research with respect to key anthropological ideas, and taking her seminar course on ethnographic writing skills immensely helped in the crafting of the narrative style of this thesis. Indeed, I consider her works to be a major influence on how I think and write, and I can only hope that I am somewhat approaching the lively and humane approach with which she researches and writes. Simon Avenell, whom I first met and befriended as an undergraduate back in Singapore, always provided greatly stimulating insights about incorporating of Japanese socio-cultural concepts to inform my analysis of the fieldwork data. Finally, Tsai Tsan-Huang also gave much important critique and feedback on the structure and theoretical framework of the research project. For the ethnographic fieldwork that was the foundation of my research project, I want to profusely thank the karaoke regulars at Chou, Ami and Sachi (whom I will not name individually for privacy reasons). Although they always thought humbly about themselves and wondered how my interest in their lives and stories would ever benefit anybody else, their activities and anecdotes have been thoroughly enlightening in expanding my understanding of the role of music and leisure in creating senses of well- being and ikigai in old age. They frequently expressed their admiration of my intellect as I was a PhD candidate, but in my eyes it was they who possessed the life wisdom that vi I learned so much from. Going to these karaoke kissas and classrooms without recommendations or invitations was a highly daunting task, and I am eternally grateful for their warm and patience acceptance of this young male foreigner, and his weird and sometimes intrusive questions. In fact, they did more than accept me; I was always generously given food, warmth and shelter whenever needed, and it was their constant kindness that made the ethnographic fieldwork such a joyful and memorable experience. I can only hope that my accounts of them in the thesis have done them justice, and that they will enjoy reading about my records of them if this thesis gets published as a Japanese book. To everyone who took me under their wing, and patiently gave their time to talk, sing, eat and drink with me, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. The financial basis of the ethnographic fieldwork was largely provided by the Japan Foundation, through the Japanese Studies Fellowship (Doctoral Candidates). I wish to thank them for their generous support. Fujita Shion, in particular, kindly oversaw the necessary administrative details of my fellowship stint, and without her help the fieldwork would not have been conducted so smoothly. For this fellowship period, I was affiliated with the Musicology Department at Osaka University, thanks to the sponsorship of the ever-welcoming Wajima Yūsuke. Since our first meeting in 2013, Wajima-sensei has constantly been a generous source of intellectual guidance and friendship: it was his ideas that first started my interest in researching karaoke classrooms and kissas ethnographically, and over the course of numerous invitations and visits he has made me feel thoroughly at home at the Musicology Department. Thanks to him, I have come to know many other colleagues working on popular music studies in Japan, and been invited to present my work to these peers at conference meetings and symposiums in both the Kansai and Kanto regions. Wajima-sensei, as well as Yasuko Hassall Kobayashi (a fellow ANU PhD graduate), also gave me chances vii to introduce my research and ideas to their classes at Osaka University. These two kinds of venues provided me with much interesting feedback that helped in my thesis writing. Besides ANU and Japan, the ideas that formed the basis of this thesis were also discussed at various other conferences and seminars around the world: the 18th Biennial IASPM Conference, the 2015 Australian Anthropological Society Annual Conference, and an invited seminar presentation hosted by the Department of Japanese Studies, National University of Singapore (NUS). Comments and suggestions about situating my fieldwork data more clearly within the socio-cultural environment of aging in contemporary Japan was a common thread throughout these venues, and I wish to thank the audience at these events, particularly Timothy Amos and Thang Leng Leng at NUS, for hammering home this important point. Coming back to ANU, I also want to acknowledge the incredible support that I received from the administrative staff of CHL during my candidature. In particular, I thank Jo Bushby and her successor Etsuko Mason for always being on top of all my administrative issues and queries. Their quick and accurate responses were crucial in the smooth progress of my candidature, particularly during a period of flux for CHL. My office mate, Ku Jeong Yoon, has also been a friendly source of companionship and support throughout this period, and I want to thank her for making our shared office a wonderful space for me to work so productively. Also, I was given the chance to teach in various undergraduate courses in CHL during my PhD candidature. I want to thank, in no particular order, the following colleagues for giving me these opportunities, and being such a joy to work with: Lee Duck-Young, Ikeda Shun, Yoshida Emi, Wang Juan, Yonezawa Yōko, Kinoshita Yūko, Matsumoto Nami, Ryu Hyunseok, Jack Fenner, Bethwyn Evans, and Ben Langley. I also feel truly blessed to have been part of the amazing HDR (Higher Degree by Research) community at ANU, perhaps the most intellectual, yet also most personal, viii collection of people I have met in my life. Warmly receiving me when I first arrived in Canberra, my HDR peers quickly invited me to their various seminar series. Presenting at the Friday Anthropology Seminar Series, the School of Music Research Seminar Series, the Gender Institute Workshop, and other campus events allowed me to develop my research in a highly interdisciplinary fashion, as I discussed my ideas with peers specializing in anthropology, Asian studies, musicology, and other research fields. I also learned much from listening to their ideas and research. In the writing phase of my candidature, our self-organized writing retreats (humorously named Shut Up and Write) provided great settings where I was able to focus and write productively. More so than