Photo and Article by Hiroshi Eto, For the North American Post
The Seattle-Tacoma Fukuoka Kenjinkai hosted the second annual All Kenjinkai Karaoke Contest at the Northshore Community Center on 21 December, 2019. Kenjinkai President Christina Swadener served as Emcee and provided the karaoke equipment for songs ranging from Japanese Enka to Taylor Swift. The undisputed All Kenjinkai Champion was Ms. Akemi Zee who won with a rendition of Misora Hibari’s “Ai San San”. She later provided an encore by singing Hosokawa Takashi’s “Naniwabushi Dayo Jinsei Wa”. Under the category of half of life being about showing up, the author of this report won best male vocal by forfeit and represented mankind with a shortened version of Eri Chiemi’s “Otemoyan”. It’s amazing how good it feels to hear songs from memory lane, but it feels even better to have a drop the mic moment.
