Online Game as Competitive Sport

This post goes back a while, but I wanted to share it with you, before it's gone completely.

Back last August, I was bopping around Yongsan Station, and I decided to venture right up to the tippy top floor of the Yongsan Shopping center. I saw greeters at a table and attendants standing at the door of an auditorium. There didn't seem to be an admission fee, so I poked my head inside, and saw this.

It was an online gaming tournament.

Now, this is something that Korea doesn't often push when it starts getting into Korea promotions: the old Hanjeongshik stuff, Hanbok and Pansoori, that stuff gets a lot of press, and old ladies in ornamental robes singing folk-songs: that always finds a spot in the video, or on the brochure. Sure.

Then I came in here, and took a look around.

See, online gaming is not just a time-killer in Korea. It's an outright phenomenon.

tournaments attract big crowds, and the top players (like this guy) are legitimate stars.
The tournaments attract corporate sponsors, as do players, crowds turn out to watch the finals, and there are always a few channels on cable that are playing competitive Starcraft games.

those stands on the sides had huge posters of the different online games featured in the competition.
some other luminaries/star players:

I stuck around, and met a girl whose online handle was Peanut. She was Korean-American, from the East Coast, I believe, and totally excited about trying to popularize competitive Starcraft in America: she and some buds had this website called sc2gg where they took korean broadcasts of tournament games, and added English language commentary, and posted it on YouTube. Peanut was pretty nice, and we had an interesting chat about online gaming, and its potential for growth: seems she was bumping into a lot of naysayers in Korean promotion circles, but on the other hand, she was talking to some pretty high-up mucky-mucks about what could be done.

Here's peanut next to a display of game action figures.

The video cameras got some crowd shots... hey look! There were some foreigners there!

This is the golden Mouse hand of the superstar pictured above. He was the first guy to game in cool outfits and try to act like a star (plus he had the chops to win stuff) rather than just playing in sweatpants with greasy hair under a baseball cap: he really helped make online gaming into more than just a nerd-hobby.

We watched these guys compete in Guitar Hero:
but unfortunately I had to meet someone before the starcraft semifinal came on.

It was a neat experience, and one that people neglect in trying to get a handle on what Korea's young people do...but seriously, this online gaming stuff is a huge thing in Korea's modern culture, for whatever reason, and to really get a grasp of what Koreans do for fun, and how young people pass time, and how much gaming means to this subculture, I'd add "attend an online gaming tournament and/or a B-boy Competition" to the list of "things to see/do in Korea" before we all get tired of Hanbok.

Thank you for reading my essay.

The Unmentioned Social Problem

Yeah, there are a lot of different issues Korea's working on these days.

Many of you expats may have noticed the Chosun Ilbo just hired a member of Anti-English spectrum as an intern...

but here's one issue that doesn't get much airtime, but if you start noticing it, it's an absofreakinglute outrage.



Nobody's really talking about this one. And Girlfriendoseyo's mom comes from a different city in Korea, and reports that overpackaging is not NEARLY as egregious there as it is here... but overpackaging here can be pretty extreme sometimes.

That's all for today.

Be happy, my readers.

Random Canada Trip Notes:

Judging from how carefully I read OTHER K-bloggers' accounts of their travels off-topic (that is, outside of Korea), I'll spare you the pages of journalling about the old friend I haven't met since high school and all that stuff, and I'll leave you with a few combinations that have struck me lately:

1. pecan pie + coffee (americano was the kind I used) = one of the best flavor combinations I've stumbled across so far. It helped that it was at the Shilla Hotel in Seoul, so it was real crackin' good pie, and real crackin' good americano...but why didn't anybody tell me that pecan pie and coffee is as awesome a combination as soy chai latte and coffee cake, black tea and clover honey, chocolate and mint, or coke and dalk galbi? WHY DIDN'T ANYBODY TELL ME? So anyway, now I'm telling you.

2. Night driving: nice
driving in rain: fun
driving on mountain roads in, say, the Rocky Mountains: awesome
driving in areas with road signs saying "watch for wildlife" = cool: maybe I'll see an elk!
driving in rain at night = NOT fun
driving from Banff to Red Deer Alberta at night in the rain when there's a risk of a deer crossing your car's path (deer will mess up your car... and I saw two on the roadside near Cochran) = NOT FUN AT ALL

3. toast + peanut butter + sliced bananas = a whole bucket of awesome. Seriously, I never got on board that whole PB&J thing -- peanut butter's good, jam's good, but I never quite dug the two together. However, peanut butter and sliced bananas is SO FLIPPIN' GOOD! (also try: toasted white bread, sliced tomatoes, lots of mayonnaise, and a bit of salt and pepper. You'll keep making more until you run out of either tomatoes or bread)

4. My brother and brother-in-law + fatherhood and my sister and sister-in-law + motherhood = sweet.

5. Girlfriendoseyo + my family = AWESOME! They really liked her. That's good. Girlfriendoseyo + bestfriendMelfromCanada = ALSO AWESOME. You have no idea how happy it makes me when people who are important to me get along. Girlfriendoseyo + My Surrogate Family S. in Agassiz = Girlfriendoseyo gets mauled with hugs! Also super special, and super important.

Yep. I don't talk about my deep, personally-personal stuff on the blog TOOO much anymore (with a few exceptions), but I WILL tell you that I was lucky enough to have Girlfriendoseyo join me in Canada for part of my vacation, and we had hella fun, and she loved it, and "gets" some things about me that can only come of meeting my family and seeing my country. It was great.

I was eating dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Banff yesterday when suddenly a lady at the next table just right passed out and fell off her chair. I saw her face as she went down and she was right out of it. That was strange. It's funny how a human being in rough shape suddenly pulls all the people around into his/her matrix of need, and nobody can look away. We are intensely social creatures who instinctively look out for each other. I do think we are, despite the evidence to the contrary that comes up here and there. It's good when we recognize this.

Catch the Corean Commie!

The Korean NIS (National Intelligence Service) has published an online game to help you spot North Korean spies.

It includes things like people covering their mouths with their hands when they talk (holy crap! every Korean woman with a cellphone is a North Korean spy!)

People who bring weapons to protests, people who leave PC rooms quickly after posting "impure" articles, and people who wear "I love Kim Il-sung" pins are among suspects for North Korean Spy-iness.

What about people who raise funds to buy weapons to assault the police?

Go play!

And don't forget, if you see a person wearing a Kim Il Sung t-shirt, talking with his hand over his mouth as he grabs his stick and furtively leaves the PC Room after posting messages to corrupt Korea's youth, and heads for a protest to hand out tracts and incite violence while photographing sensitive government compounds, the number to call is 111: Korea's spy hotline.

Ooch! Forget Zombie movies...

I've just fallen in love with bollywood.