These days I’m not in the classroom long before hearing someone – usually a student but occasionally a cheeky co-teacher – calling out “Santa Claus! Santa Claus!” to me in an unmistakably Konglish patois. Christmas is fast approaching and Santa is busy hawking everything from LCD televisions to gimchee refrigerators in Korea this holiday season. His rosy mug gives a wink and smile from just about every store’s window. So I can understand why kids would have Santa on the brain. But that doesn’t necessarily explain this new nickname of mine.
What is it about me that begs the comparison? At first glance not much:
Despite frequent bouts of gastronomical enthusiasm I do not share jolly Saint Nick’s jovial rotundity. My wardrobe consists of not a single red jumpsuit. I couldn’t locate the North Pole on a globe if the place didn’t have directions built into its very name. My working understanding of reindeer is slight, and while my knowledge of elves is (embarrassingly) considerable this is more of the Dungeons and Dragons/Tolkien’s "Lord of the Rings" variety than it is Santa’s little helpers. I’ve never even ridden on a sleigh.
I don’t exactly sound like a guy whose gonna find out if you’ve been naughty or nice, right?
But there’s more to the story.
You see there is something about me – a quality so uncommon, so rare, and so significant in Korea – that it is seemingly capable of changing the fresh face of a boy from the Mid-West into the very visage of Father Christmas.
What is this caterpillian quality? What is the motivation of this transmogrification?
My beard.
Now my beard isn’t especially Clausian: it is of a chestnut hue and, despite three month’s of unmolested growth, doesn’t reach much beyond my chin. Judged against even a garden variety Santa at the mall in any American suburb I wouldn’t measure up. But I’m not in Kansas anymore. And around these parts a little scruff goes a long way.
The beard in Korea is an endangered species. A thick whiskered Korean man is as elusive a creature as the bird watcher’s ivory bill woodpecker: they may be out there but it’s been many a moon since one was spotted in the wild. True, you may from time to time run across a fellow with a little facial fuzz – the pencil stache is currently popular with gangsters and a few pop stars – but this is the kind of well-manicured, finely sculpted “beard” that looks like it took about three times as long to groom as it did to grow.
Gentlemen, if you could successfully audition for a boy band it’s not a beard.
This scarcity of facial hair, this paucity of pileousity if beards happen to make you rhapsodic (ladies you know who you are), is more a genetic matter than it is a cosmetic one: Koreans just aren’t very hairy. Any effort by a typical Korean man to muster more than a downy shadow on his chin is an exercise in follicular futility. Naturally, then, my beard is a bit of a novelty and reactions to it run the spectrum from awe (pre-adolescent boys) to envy (middle-aged men) to courteous disgust (women regardless of age).
I take the good with the bad. Sure my beard is essentially date-repellant, but it also provides me with the most effective means I have of keeping some of my sixth grade boys in line: they see it as a testament to my alpha-male status. (Clearly these aren’t the same students who liken me to Santa Claus). Luckily I’ve not yet had to join these boys on the soccer field where their perceived notions of my presumed manliness will collapse like a house of cards. I’ll milk it for what it’s worth while I can.
In just a couple of weeks 2008 will be winding down. And I imagine once the holidays have passed, after the sales have ended and the Christmas tree has been packed away till next time, I won’t hear so many shouts of “Santa Claus! Santa Claus!” as I walk the halls of my elementary school.
No, I’ll probably go back to hearing the refrain of “Chuck Norris! Chuck Norris!” that greets me for the better part of the year.
That’s right: Santa Claus and Chuck Norris.
I’d like to think I’m doing the beard proud.
Wednesday, 10 December 2008
Thursday, 4 December 2008
No. 4
The buildings stand packed together in tight rows. Their concrete facades – advertising for restaurants, shops, clubs and bars – are similar enough to be interchangeable; each block replicating itself with only minor variations. The air is rank with exhaust fumes.
Central Seoul.
The streets are busy now with families and couples out on the weekend, but this crowd is nothing compared with what will happen later that night. After dark these streets will overflow with hundreds of young men and women awash in a sea of neon drifting from one bar to the next. People will huddle shoulder to shoulder around street stalls eating a cheap midnight snack of odeng or deokboki. There’s likely to be a fight or two; someone passed out or vomiting on the sidewalk. The crowds won’t let up until the trains start running again at 5 AM.
You’ve spent most of the afternoon walking through this neighborhood without any destination in mind and now you’re thirsty. It doesn’t take long to find a café. Approaching it you can smell freshly ground coffee beans. Korea doesn’t serve the best coffee but it’s not the worst you’ve had either; and you’ve had plenty of opportunities to learn to appreciate it.
Inside there is some confusion about your order which is frustrating because you consider ordering coffee one of the few things you are capable of in the language. Once this gets straightened out you mount the stairs to try and find a seat on the second floor; it is crowded but there’s a table available. You quickly walk over and sit down.
You take a couple of things out of your book bag and have a look around.
A group of four women are sitting at the table in front of you. Three of the women sport nearly identical bobbed hairstyles. There are frequent lulls in their chattering as they scoop spoonfuls from a shared bowl of ice cream and cake into their mouths. To your right, at the tables lined up against a row of floor to ceiling windows, sit three couples. The couple sitting farthest from you – the youngest of the trio – might be on a first date: their interactions conducted with all of the awkwardness and expectation of romance in its infancy. The two other couples – older; perhaps in their thirties – seem comfortable if not a little bored: that initial wild excitement long since subdued through habit.
You take another drink of your iced Americano.
Young girls reading fashion magazines consult with pocket mirrors before reapplying lipstick and foundation according to their own exclusive code of beauty. A man in a tweed jacket gesticulates wildly and knocks his drink over in the process. A mother bounces a baby on her knee while her husband flips mindlessly through the newspaper. Music – mostly American Top 40 from the ‘80’s – plays over the intercom. In the short time you’ve been here nearly every person has had their cell phone out to take a call or send a text message.
This is the same Saturday afternoon that plays out in any number of cafés around the world; the same Saturday afternoon you have participated in for many years. From a café in Kansas City to one in Seoul; it doesn’t matter where you go; how far you may wander from home. You never stop being yourself.
Man is a map.
By the time you step out of the café the sun smolders in a glowing heap on the horizon. The crowd is growing. You zip up your coat. December can be a cruel month here. You could stand to eat something but it is difficult getting a table for one in Korea. There’s always street food but you had that for lunch. All the restaurants you check look full. You decide to try a quieter part of the neighborhood. Following a narrow, twisting back alley you come to a Japanese franchise that specializes in ramen. The place is packed but the cook lets you eat at the counter with a few other people. You order pork ramen and a beer. It isn’t long before a piping bowl of noodles arrives. Alternating bites of hot ramen with sips of cold beer makes for a satisfying meal. You hurry to finish and free up a spot at the counter; there are people waiting.
Returning to the main street the now massive crowd moves like one entity: each person a single cell contributing a tiny part to this organism’s enormity. From any of the surrounding rooftops you imagine it to look like a pulsating, amorphous creature – something out of a B grade horror flick – heaving its way in all directions; a cacophony of white noise rising from it like an alien frequency. Merging with the crowd you move to the pulse of this amalgamated animal, aimlessly, without volition.
The crowd carries you to a place called “The Gamble” which you figure will be as good as any of the other countless bars around here. You spill with a few others into the building’s lobby. The Gamble is on the fourth floor but there is a line for the elevator so you take the stairs. On your way up you are bombarded by images of candy canes, presents, Santa Claus and reindeer. It is like a concerted effort by all that is lurid and crass about the holiday season to make you homesick.
It more or less succeeds.
Unsurprisingly, The Gamble is wall-to-wall crowded with the exception of the bar itself which is completely empty. You order an imported brown ale. It’s more expensive than a domestic but worth it. You’ve only had your beer long enough to take a few swigs before two men walk up to you. They are both pretty big: the kind of crew cut, square-jawed dudes who look like they take their steaks raw. American G.I.’s, probably. They are saying something to you in English. One cracks a lewd joke; you don’t laugh; they get the picture.
You finish your beer alone.
That first beer hits the spot so you order another. The bartender – a no longer young but still attractive woman calling herself “Phantasia” – brings it over. You’ve both made some marginal attempts at small talk, but these are just ramshackle bridges that can only begin to span a linguistic divide. She pantomimes a rock, scissors, and paper with her hand. “Play”, she says. Your first game ends in a draw: paper. You beat her on the second try. Reaching into her jacket pocket she pulls out a wooden bracelet of Buddhist prayer beads. The charm is slipped over your wrist. “Here”, she says. “For good luck.”
For good luck, you think. It couldn’t hurt.
The elevator’s slow descent is interrupted at each floor to pick up new passengers. Two drunken girls stumble on. They try to practice their English with you. The ride down seems to take forever. Finally the doors open with a sound like a gasp, a rush of breath, and cool air hits your face. Your ears are burning. The buildings outside are lit up in the garish greens and reds of Christmas back home. It is as bright as midday. A business card for a strip joint is placed in your hand. Over the thumping bass of a generic hip hop track laughter mixes with a language you can barely comprehend. You feel like a sleepwalker in someone else’s dream.
Fingering the bracelet you struggle against the crowd towards the subway entrance. You need to hurry.
The last train leaves in fifteen minutes.
Central Seoul.
The streets are busy now with families and couples out on the weekend, but this crowd is nothing compared with what will happen later that night. After dark these streets will overflow with hundreds of young men and women awash in a sea of neon drifting from one bar to the next. People will huddle shoulder to shoulder around street stalls eating a cheap midnight snack of odeng or deokboki. There’s likely to be a fight or two; someone passed out or vomiting on the sidewalk. The crowds won’t let up until the trains start running again at 5 AM.
You’ve spent most of the afternoon walking through this neighborhood without any destination in mind and now you’re thirsty. It doesn’t take long to find a café. Approaching it you can smell freshly ground coffee beans. Korea doesn’t serve the best coffee but it’s not the worst you’ve had either; and you’ve had plenty of opportunities to learn to appreciate it.
Inside there is some confusion about your order which is frustrating because you consider ordering coffee one of the few things you are capable of in the language. Once this gets straightened out you mount the stairs to try and find a seat on the second floor; it is crowded but there’s a table available. You quickly walk over and sit down.
You take a couple of things out of your book bag and have a look around.
A group of four women are sitting at the table in front of you. Three of the women sport nearly identical bobbed hairstyles. There are frequent lulls in their chattering as they scoop spoonfuls from a shared bowl of ice cream and cake into their mouths. To your right, at the tables lined up against a row of floor to ceiling windows, sit three couples. The couple sitting farthest from you – the youngest of the trio – might be on a first date: their interactions conducted with all of the awkwardness and expectation of romance in its infancy. The two other couples – older; perhaps in their thirties – seem comfortable if not a little bored: that initial wild excitement long since subdued through habit.
You take another drink of your iced Americano.
Young girls reading fashion magazines consult with pocket mirrors before reapplying lipstick and foundation according to their own exclusive code of beauty. A man in a tweed jacket gesticulates wildly and knocks his drink over in the process. A mother bounces a baby on her knee while her husband flips mindlessly through the newspaper. Music – mostly American Top 40 from the ‘80’s – plays over the intercom. In the short time you’ve been here nearly every person has had their cell phone out to take a call or send a text message.
This is the same Saturday afternoon that plays out in any number of cafés around the world; the same Saturday afternoon you have participated in for many years. From a café in Kansas City to one in Seoul; it doesn’t matter where you go; how far you may wander from home. You never stop being yourself.
Man is a map.
By the time you step out of the café the sun smolders in a glowing heap on the horizon. The crowd is growing. You zip up your coat. December can be a cruel month here. You could stand to eat something but it is difficult getting a table for one in Korea. There’s always street food but you had that for lunch. All the restaurants you check look full. You decide to try a quieter part of the neighborhood. Following a narrow, twisting back alley you come to a Japanese franchise that specializes in ramen. The place is packed but the cook lets you eat at the counter with a few other people. You order pork ramen and a beer. It isn’t long before a piping bowl of noodles arrives. Alternating bites of hot ramen with sips of cold beer makes for a satisfying meal. You hurry to finish and free up a spot at the counter; there are people waiting.
Returning to the main street the now massive crowd moves like one entity: each person a single cell contributing a tiny part to this organism’s enormity. From any of the surrounding rooftops you imagine it to look like a pulsating, amorphous creature – something out of a B grade horror flick – heaving its way in all directions; a cacophony of white noise rising from it like an alien frequency. Merging with the crowd you move to the pulse of this amalgamated animal, aimlessly, without volition.
The crowd carries you to a place called “The Gamble” which you figure will be as good as any of the other countless bars around here. You spill with a few others into the building’s lobby. The Gamble is on the fourth floor but there is a line for the elevator so you take the stairs. On your way up you are bombarded by images of candy canes, presents, Santa Claus and reindeer. It is like a concerted effort by all that is lurid and crass about the holiday season to make you homesick.
It more or less succeeds.
Unsurprisingly, The Gamble is wall-to-wall crowded with the exception of the bar itself which is completely empty. You order an imported brown ale. It’s more expensive than a domestic but worth it. You’ve only had your beer long enough to take a few swigs before two men walk up to you. They are both pretty big: the kind of crew cut, square-jawed dudes who look like they take their steaks raw. American G.I.’s, probably. They are saying something to you in English. One cracks a lewd joke; you don’t laugh; they get the picture.
You finish your beer alone.
That first beer hits the spot so you order another. The bartender – a no longer young but still attractive woman calling herself “Phantasia” – brings it over. You’ve both made some marginal attempts at small talk, but these are just ramshackle bridges that can only begin to span a linguistic divide. She pantomimes a rock, scissors, and paper with her hand. “Play”, she says. Your first game ends in a draw: paper. You beat her on the second try. Reaching into her jacket pocket she pulls out a wooden bracelet of Buddhist prayer beads. The charm is slipped over your wrist. “Here”, she says. “For good luck.”
For good luck, you think. It couldn’t hurt.
The elevator’s slow descent is interrupted at each floor to pick up new passengers. Two drunken girls stumble on. They try to practice their English with you. The ride down seems to take forever. Finally the doors open with a sound like a gasp, a rush of breath, and cool air hits your face. Your ears are burning. The buildings outside are lit up in the garish greens and reds of Christmas back home. It is as bright as midday. A business card for a strip joint is placed in your hand. Over the thumping bass of a generic hip hop track laughter mixes with a language you can barely comprehend. You feel like a sleepwalker in someone else’s dream.
Fingering the bracelet you struggle against the crowd towards the subway entrance. You need to hurry.
The last train leaves in fifteen minutes.
Friday, 28 November 2008
No. 3
Hatred never ends through hatred.
By non-hate alone does it end.
This is an ancient truth.
-the Dhammapada
By non-hate alone does it end.
This is an ancient truth.
-the Dhammapada
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
No. 2
It was the summer of 1992. I turned thirteen that June.
That summer I kissed a girl for the first time: a shameless and slobbery affair on an amusement park ride. I did a lot of fishing and hiking with my dog in the woods behind the house in which I grew up; woods they bulldozed that fall to put in a new subdivision. I learned a few chords on the guitar, slept in nearly every morning, and just generally gorged myself on the carefree indolence of youth. But of all the events that still signify that summer to me, probably the most memorable took place at a neighborhood convenience store.
I was over at my friend Daniel Martin’s house. Daniel was two years younger than me – a significant amount at that age – but I liked him. And he was one of the few kids I hung out with. Our mom’s had introduced us at church. There was a 7-11 about a mile from where he lived and we’d usually ride our bikes down there when we had a little money between us. Although cash in hand was certainly not a prerequisite: a lot of times we’d just stand around inside, broke, enjoying the A/C our parents were two poor to use, thumbing through comics and magazines until one of the cashiers would ask us to buy something or leave.
In the early-Nineties arcades were still big business in America and just about every pizza parlor, movie theatre and convenience store had a cabinet or two set up to coax you (or, more often, a beleaguered parent) into parting with any loose quarters that might be jingling around in your pocket: classics like Galaga and Pac-Man; newer titles like N.A.R.C., Toki, and Klax; and, for the first time ever that glorious summer, Street Fighter II: The World Warriors.
The specifics are hazy. I don’t remember when exactly the local 7-11 got its Street Fighter II cabinet. I was plenty into videogames as a kid but I can’t remember any games that preceded this one set up next to the Slurpee machine. It might be that, as an extra quarter was a rarity in those days, I had no reason to notice the previous games on offer. Maybe Street Fighter II stood unnoticed by me for weeks or, for all I can remember, it might have been installed earlier that same day. The particulars leading up to the event may be lost, but I’ll never forget that summer afternoon in 1992 when I was in possession of that rare quarter and played my first game of Street Fighter II.
It was one of those childhood experiences that stay with you.
I chose Blanka as my avatar. Blanka, for the (lamentably!) uninitiated, is a mutant from Brazil who employs a Capoiera fighting style (naturally) and battles to reunite with his mother. A gripping narrative was clearly not the game’s selling point. I picked this particular character because his green skin reminded me of the Incredible Hulk (another childhood fixation that has weathered the journey into adulthood). Who knows how far into the game I got on that portentous quarter? I didn’t get knocked out in the first round but I doubt I got much beyond that. What is certain is that I got at least far enough for this game with its eight suitably outlandish yet iconic playable characters – the “World Warriors” of the game’s sub-title – to seize hold of my imagination in a serious way.
Very nearly the first game of its kind and without question the most accomplished to that point, Street Fighter II introduced a generation of boys (and occasionally their fathers and uncles) to the wonders of the one-on-one fighter. Elegantly simple in its design – a joystick and three buttons each for punches and kicks – the level of depth afforded by the game’s play mechanics were unprecedented. Matches, either against the computer or more preferably a human controlled opponent, were best of three affairs that combined the strategy of chess with the breakneck pace and pyrotechnics of an action packed Saturday morning cartoon: every bout was the apotheosis of hand-eye coordination in sixty second bursts. Even at the time of this writing, more than sixteen years after its U.S. debut, the game and its subsequent iterations still routinely host competitive tournaments.
I was hooked.
Before long it got to the point where I’d reckon the meager pittance I received in allowance not as any monetary unit but in the number of plays at Street Fighter II it afforded me. Learning that each character was capable of powerful special moves and nearly unstoppable combos was to be initiated into a secret and arcane knowledge; the joystick and button combinations for these devastating arts becoming mantras that were repeated throughout the day. I scoured gaming magazines for whatever fresh insights I could glean from them about my passion. I filled notebooks with drawings of the game’s roster engaged in combat or striking various heroic poses; as well as a number of tawdry and anatomically ludicrous depictions of Chun-li, the game’s lone female protagonist.
In other words, I treated Street Fighter II like most thirteen year olds treat an interest: I absolutely freaking obsessed over it.
This monomaniacal devotion to perfecting my Street Fighter II game had a significant impact on my available income: I was soon able to conquer the game’s final boss – the despotic M. Bison – on a single try and the other kids who frequented that 7-11 learned not to waste their money on a match against me. So not only could I get in a game or two of Street Fighter II but I often had enough change left over for a candy or soda.
It’s good to be king.
As the summer wore on I, like any fighting champ, sought out challengers worthy of my skill and for the first time in my young life a trip with my mom to the mall was not the equivalent of death by boredom and/or embarrassment.
One of the privileges accorded me by parents that summer was a greater degree of autonomy. A privilege I wasted no time in abusing by sucking face with whatever girl was willing and available (a combination that was, admittedly, pretty rare.) Beyond these poorly judged PDA episodes, however, I exercised my freedom by heading straight for the arcade in the mall – a smoky and rather seedy place called Aladdin’s Castle – while my mom did her shopping.
It was like moving from Triple A to the Majors; I got whipped pretty good on my first couple of attempts. Part of it was stage fright: a lot of the kids there were older than me and, as shy as I often was then, just working my way up to a cabinet very nearly exhausted my available resources. I was also terrified that my mom was going to come back to get me at the exact moment one of these guys dropped an F-bomb, thus making it very difficult to focus. After a while, though, I got comfortable in this environment and I started tallying up wins. It wasn’t long before I’d created a name for myself at the arcade amongst the older boys.
Playing Street Fighter II at Aladdin’s Castle – and playing it well, it must be remembered – allowed me to connect with my peers in a way that, up to that point, I’d never had access. I was never any good at sports (the word “abysmal” fits) and to make matters worse, at least from a social standpoint, I was homeschooled. So not only did I lack a common school – and thus social – experience with the kids in my neighborhood but I also could not compete with them in the ritual of kicking a ball or running fast and far. (Unless, of course, I was running fast and far to escape getting my ass kicked; I was a pro at that.)
These factors combined with my love of reading and drawing made me an easy target for bullies growing up. But thanks largely to the well-meaning vigilance, and downright scariness, of my mom I went from being picked on to being ignored. By thirteen I’d gone from punching bag to pariah.
I don’t know which was worse.
Being one of the better Street Fighter II players around (I’d given up Blanka and was playing a mean Ken by summer’s end; the character I nearly became invincible with) gave me a chance to know what it felt like to belong to the tribe; it gave me a shot at solidarity. Some boys have their jump shot or a mean fastball to earn the respect of their peers; I had a flying uppercut and a whirlwind kick. It’s geeky, sure, but what can you do? In childhood we are not in a position to question or repeal the circumstances that write themselves upon us; the circumstances that define us. Growing up is the awkward and frequently painful struggle of trying to rid ourselves of this mark or finding some way to live with it.
Did I want to be identified as a kid who was good at a videogame? That’s the wrong question to ask. I was just glad to have any kind of identity at all.
Given this history you can probably imagine how I reacted when in early-2008 Capcom – the Japanese developer of the Street Fighter franchise – announced they would release Street Fighter IV, the first numbered entry in the series in more than a decade, that fall. Excitement doesn’t quite do it justice: I watched the teaser trailer online many, many times. I emailed it to friends. I searched the internet for previews, write-ups, and a release date. I started plotting what steps I would need to take in order to play this game as soon as possible (how much would a ticket to Japan cost?) It was like I’d hit a time warp that sent me back fifteen years into the past. But the thing is I’m not thirteen years old anymore and my life has far more responsibilities now than I could ever have imagined back then. This reignited obsession blazed white hot for a moment and then burned itself out.
That is until last week.
Last week through a random browsing of a message board I learned that Street Fighter IV was available in Korea.
At an arcade in Seoul one hour from where I live.
The weekend couldn’t arrive fast enough.
* * *
Has this extended rumination on Street Fighter II been just a trip down memory lane? A sepia tinted look back at the halcyon past? Is this game only a totem, a sort of fetish, of my childhood? To some extent the answer to these questions must be “yes”, but this is a qualified assent. Yes, Street Fighter II is emblematic of a special childhood experience but it isn’t so much the memory of an experience, per se, that still carries value for me.
Nostalgia has become an enormously marketable commodity for many of us. If you grew up in the West or Japan chances are you passed much of your childhood and adolescence in relative comfort playing the days away with toys and games that have long since gone the way of the garage sale. Sure, in today’s Age of EBay nothing ever truly disappears into the ether. And even easier than this route – and generally less expensive – you can now recover all those lost after-school afternoons spent with Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, Transformers, et al through a quick trip down to Wal-Mart; or a ticket to the next summer blockbuster. Or that is what multi-million dollar marketing campaigns would have us believe, anyway.
How many of you from my generation – now parents yourselves – haven’t given to your child a modernized version of your own favorite plaything in the hopes of recapturing even a spark of that first flame?
Only the fire remains out.
Or who among you has not found himself seated in a theatre at the midnight opening of the film debut of a cherished childhood property? The special effects blow away anything the original could have produced; the story is competent; the characters are treated with respect; there is plenty of fan-service.
Yet your thirteen year-old self remains as distant as an echo.
I’ve certainly experienced my fair share of these and similar disappointments.
Can we really not go home again?
Maybe not. But if it is possible the road there will not lead through a mausoleum of once loved experiences; it will not be found by propitiating old ghosts. It will have to be a much harder pass than this because what we yearn for is not the experience itself but what motivated the experience. All the toys and games were incidental; they were a mere catalyst for the joy of discovery, of faith, of – Chun-li nudie pics and all – innocence.
We want to be surprised again, in the best possible way, with what life has to offer.
We want to shed the cynicism that so often attends adulthood.
* * *
The arcade was packed – teens and younger kids, mostly; a few businessmen at the crane games and slot machines – and I had to endure a molasses-slow line before getting my turn to play. When I finally stepped up the cabinet I looked over at the kid who was to be my opponent. He couldn’t have been a whole lot older than I was the first time I played. He was fidgeting with the joystick while I put the required change into the machine. I wondered what kind of map his life would be and where it would lead him. I wondered if he would someday find himself in a faraway land remembering his own childhood in South Korea.
“How’s it going?”
“Umm, hello”, he replied in English.
He seemed awfully nervous.
I moved my cursor over to Ken and was about to hit the “Start” button when I glanced at him once more. He was focused on the screen now, still visibly nervous but with a set, determined look on his face. He was obviously going to play to win.
Who knows? Maybe this kid reckoned his allowance the way I once had and had to make every coin count. Maybe this game was a lot more to him than just a way to kill time on a Saturday afternoon.
My cursor lingered on Ken for a moment more before I moved it.
Just for old time’s sake, I thought.
I chose Blanka.
That summer I kissed a girl for the first time: a shameless and slobbery affair on an amusement park ride. I did a lot of fishing and hiking with my dog in the woods behind the house in which I grew up; woods they bulldozed that fall to put in a new subdivision. I learned a few chords on the guitar, slept in nearly every morning, and just generally gorged myself on the carefree indolence of youth. But of all the events that still signify that summer to me, probably the most memorable took place at a neighborhood convenience store.
I was over at my friend Daniel Martin’s house. Daniel was two years younger than me – a significant amount at that age – but I liked him. And he was one of the few kids I hung out with. Our mom’s had introduced us at church. There was a 7-11 about a mile from where he lived and we’d usually ride our bikes down there when we had a little money between us. Although cash in hand was certainly not a prerequisite: a lot of times we’d just stand around inside, broke, enjoying the A/C our parents were two poor to use, thumbing through comics and magazines until one of the cashiers would ask us to buy something or leave.
In the early-Nineties arcades were still big business in America and just about every pizza parlor, movie theatre and convenience store had a cabinet or two set up to coax you (or, more often, a beleaguered parent) into parting with any loose quarters that might be jingling around in your pocket: classics like Galaga and Pac-Man; newer titles like N.A.R.C., Toki, and Klax; and, for the first time ever that glorious summer, Street Fighter II: The World Warriors.
The specifics are hazy. I don’t remember when exactly the local 7-11 got its Street Fighter II cabinet. I was plenty into videogames as a kid but I can’t remember any games that preceded this one set up next to the Slurpee machine. It might be that, as an extra quarter was a rarity in those days, I had no reason to notice the previous games on offer. Maybe Street Fighter II stood unnoticed by me for weeks or, for all I can remember, it might have been installed earlier that same day. The particulars leading up to the event may be lost, but I’ll never forget that summer afternoon in 1992 when I was in possession of that rare quarter and played my first game of Street Fighter II.
It was one of those childhood experiences that stay with you.
I chose Blanka as my avatar. Blanka, for the (lamentably!) uninitiated, is a mutant from Brazil who employs a Capoiera fighting style (naturally) and battles to reunite with his mother. A gripping narrative was clearly not the game’s selling point. I picked this particular character because his green skin reminded me of the Incredible Hulk (another childhood fixation that has weathered the journey into adulthood). Who knows how far into the game I got on that portentous quarter? I didn’t get knocked out in the first round but I doubt I got much beyond that. What is certain is that I got at least far enough for this game with its eight suitably outlandish yet iconic playable characters – the “World Warriors” of the game’s sub-title – to seize hold of my imagination in a serious way.
Very nearly the first game of its kind and without question the most accomplished to that point, Street Fighter II introduced a generation of boys (and occasionally their fathers and uncles) to the wonders of the one-on-one fighter. Elegantly simple in its design – a joystick and three buttons each for punches and kicks – the level of depth afforded by the game’s play mechanics were unprecedented. Matches, either against the computer or more preferably a human controlled opponent, were best of three affairs that combined the strategy of chess with the breakneck pace and pyrotechnics of an action packed Saturday morning cartoon: every bout was the apotheosis of hand-eye coordination in sixty second bursts. Even at the time of this writing, more than sixteen years after its U.S. debut, the game and its subsequent iterations still routinely host competitive tournaments.
I was hooked.
Before long it got to the point where I’d reckon the meager pittance I received in allowance not as any monetary unit but in the number of plays at Street Fighter II it afforded me. Learning that each character was capable of powerful special moves and nearly unstoppable combos was to be initiated into a secret and arcane knowledge; the joystick and button combinations for these devastating arts becoming mantras that were repeated throughout the day. I scoured gaming magazines for whatever fresh insights I could glean from them about my passion. I filled notebooks with drawings of the game’s roster engaged in combat or striking various heroic poses; as well as a number of tawdry and anatomically ludicrous depictions of Chun-li, the game’s lone female protagonist.
In other words, I treated Street Fighter II like most thirteen year olds treat an interest: I absolutely freaking obsessed over it.
This monomaniacal devotion to perfecting my Street Fighter II game had a significant impact on my available income: I was soon able to conquer the game’s final boss – the despotic M. Bison – on a single try and the other kids who frequented that 7-11 learned not to waste their money on a match against me. So not only could I get in a game or two of Street Fighter II but I often had enough change left over for a candy or soda.
It’s good to be king.
As the summer wore on I, like any fighting champ, sought out challengers worthy of my skill and for the first time in my young life a trip with my mom to the mall was not the equivalent of death by boredom and/or embarrassment.
One of the privileges accorded me by parents that summer was a greater degree of autonomy. A privilege I wasted no time in abusing by sucking face with whatever girl was willing and available (a combination that was, admittedly, pretty rare.) Beyond these poorly judged PDA episodes, however, I exercised my freedom by heading straight for the arcade in the mall – a smoky and rather seedy place called Aladdin’s Castle – while my mom did her shopping.
It was like moving from Triple A to the Majors; I got whipped pretty good on my first couple of attempts. Part of it was stage fright: a lot of the kids there were older than me and, as shy as I often was then, just working my way up to a cabinet very nearly exhausted my available resources. I was also terrified that my mom was going to come back to get me at the exact moment one of these guys dropped an F-bomb, thus making it very difficult to focus. After a while, though, I got comfortable in this environment and I started tallying up wins. It wasn’t long before I’d created a name for myself at the arcade amongst the older boys.
Playing Street Fighter II at Aladdin’s Castle – and playing it well, it must be remembered – allowed me to connect with my peers in a way that, up to that point, I’d never had access. I was never any good at sports (the word “abysmal” fits) and to make matters worse, at least from a social standpoint, I was homeschooled. So not only did I lack a common school – and thus social – experience with the kids in my neighborhood but I also could not compete with them in the ritual of kicking a ball or running fast and far. (Unless, of course, I was running fast and far to escape getting my ass kicked; I was a pro at that.)
These factors combined with my love of reading and drawing made me an easy target for bullies growing up. But thanks largely to the well-meaning vigilance, and downright scariness, of my mom I went from being picked on to being ignored. By thirteen I’d gone from punching bag to pariah.
I don’t know which was worse.
Being one of the better Street Fighter II players around (I’d given up Blanka and was playing a mean Ken by summer’s end; the character I nearly became invincible with) gave me a chance to know what it felt like to belong to the tribe; it gave me a shot at solidarity. Some boys have their jump shot or a mean fastball to earn the respect of their peers; I had a flying uppercut and a whirlwind kick. It’s geeky, sure, but what can you do? In childhood we are not in a position to question or repeal the circumstances that write themselves upon us; the circumstances that define us. Growing up is the awkward and frequently painful struggle of trying to rid ourselves of this mark or finding some way to live with it.
Did I want to be identified as a kid who was good at a videogame? That’s the wrong question to ask. I was just glad to have any kind of identity at all.
Given this history you can probably imagine how I reacted when in early-2008 Capcom – the Japanese developer of the Street Fighter franchise – announced they would release Street Fighter IV, the first numbered entry in the series in more than a decade, that fall. Excitement doesn’t quite do it justice: I watched the teaser trailer online many, many times. I emailed it to friends. I searched the internet for previews, write-ups, and a release date. I started plotting what steps I would need to take in order to play this game as soon as possible (how much would a ticket to Japan cost?) It was like I’d hit a time warp that sent me back fifteen years into the past. But the thing is I’m not thirteen years old anymore and my life has far more responsibilities now than I could ever have imagined back then. This reignited obsession blazed white hot for a moment and then burned itself out.
That is until last week.
Last week through a random browsing of a message board I learned that Street Fighter IV was available in Korea.
At an arcade in Seoul one hour from where I live.
The weekend couldn’t arrive fast enough.
* * *
Has this extended rumination on Street Fighter II been just a trip down memory lane? A sepia tinted look back at the halcyon past? Is this game only a totem, a sort of fetish, of my childhood? To some extent the answer to these questions must be “yes”, but this is a qualified assent. Yes, Street Fighter II is emblematic of a special childhood experience but it isn’t so much the memory of an experience, per se, that still carries value for me.
Nostalgia has become an enormously marketable commodity for many of us. If you grew up in the West or Japan chances are you passed much of your childhood and adolescence in relative comfort playing the days away with toys and games that have long since gone the way of the garage sale. Sure, in today’s Age of EBay nothing ever truly disappears into the ether. And even easier than this route – and generally less expensive – you can now recover all those lost after-school afternoons spent with Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, Transformers, et al through a quick trip down to Wal-Mart; or a ticket to the next summer blockbuster. Or that is what multi-million dollar marketing campaigns would have us believe, anyway.
How many of you from my generation – now parents yourselves – haven’t given to your child a modernized version of your own favorite plaything in the hopes of recapturing even a spark of that first flame?
Only the fire remains out.
Or who among you has not found himself seated in a theatre at the midnight opening of the film debut of a cherished childhood property? The special effects blow away anything the original could have produced; the story is competent; the characters are treated with respect; there is plenty of fan-service.
Yet your thirteen year-old self remains as distant as an echo.
I’ve certainly experienced my fair share of these and similar disappointments.
Can we really not go home again?
Maybe not. But if it is possible the road there will not lead through a mausoleum of once loved experiences; it will not be found by propitiating old ghosts. It will have to be a much harder pass than this because what we yearn for is not the experience itself but what motivated the experience. All the toys and games were incidental; they were a mere catalyst for the joy of discovery, of faith, of – Chun-li nudie pics and all – innocence.
We want to be surprised again, in the best possible way, with what life has to offer.
We want to shed the cynicism that so often attends adulthood.
* * *
The arcade was packed – teens and younger kids, mostly; a few businessmen at the crane games and slot machines – and I had to endure a molasses-slow line before getting my turn to play. When I finally stepped up the cabinet I looked over at the kid who was to be my opponent. He couldn’t have been a whole lot older than I was the first time I played. He was fidgeting with the joystick while I put the required change into the machine. I wondered what kind of map his life would be and where it would lead him. I wondered if he would someday find himself in a faraway land remembering his own childhood in South Korea.
“How’s it going?”
“Umm, hello”, he replied in English.
He seemed awfully nervous.
I moved my cursor over to Ken and was about to hit the “Start” button when I glanced at him once more. He was focused on the screen now, still visibly nervous but with a set, determined look on his face. He was obviously going to play to win.
Who knows? Maybe this kid reckoned his allowance the way I once had and had to make every coin count. Maybe this game was a lot more to him than just a way to kill time on a Saturday afternoon.
My cursor lingered on Ken for a moment more before I moved it.
Just for old time’s sake, I thought.
I chose Blanka.
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
No. 1
I moved to South Korea on 26th August, 2007.
My life before that in Kansas City wasn’t a bad one by any means – I had a wonderful family and group of friends to spend time with; a career that had its ups and downs but was largely fulfilling; plenty of good books to read; a cat – but after nearly a quarter century in the same community I’d begun to feel like a lot of my possibilities at home had been exhausted. I felt stuck: stuck in a routine; stuck in one place; stuck in my own skin. I experienced shades of “Groundhog Day” every morning.
So I decided to shake things up.
In a pretty big way.
The week before Thanksgiving 2006 had been a particularly hard one at work. I was at the office late (a not uncommon occurrence at the time) finishing up a few emails when I decided to take a quick look at any job openings in my area. It wasn’t that I hated my job; I was just so restless; so bored with myself. I loaded up craigslist and the first listing I clicked on was a “Teach in Korea” link. It was just a generic add for an English institution outside of Seoul – the kind of add that clutters these types of sites – but it set me on a scavenger hunt for information (not on company time, of course) that would eventually lead me to accept a teaching position at an elementary school in Yeosu, South Korea. I’d been involved in education for a couple of years already and it had long been a desire of mine to see Asia.
This opportunity seemed like a perfect fit.
When my plane touched down at Incheon International Airport after twenty-six sleepless hours of travel I was running on pure adrenaline. Through some time spent playing guitar in a rock band before college I’d been fortunate enough to travel around much of the United States but this was only my second time overseas; the first being a brief two weeks in the United Kingdom and Italy over the 2003/04 Christmas holiday. Nothing in my life’s experience had prepared me for this journey and, now on my second year, I can safely say nothing outside of time spent in Korea would have.
It is a weird and wonderful place.
This blog will consist primarily of impressions of and reflections upon my time spent living, working, and travelling through South Korea, although I should forewarn you that given the nature both of this medium and the author a certain number of self-indulgent detours into fiction seem regrettably inevitable. I’ll try to keep those at a minimum. For the most part I will stick to recounting many of the everyday experiences that never cease to fascinate and bemuse me: walking through open-air fish markets; hiking with Buddhist monks; eating and drinking with Koreans; and all the countless opportunities for comedy that avail themselves to you when you’re a stranger in a strange land, to list but a few.
Above all this blog will be a way for me to preserve the memory of what has become one of the most unique and remarkable seasons of my life. It is my hope that you would find some of these entries of interest.
I suppose that about does it by way of a preface.
Thanks for checking out my little love letter to the Land of Morning Calm.
My life before that in Kansas City wasn’t a bad one by any means – I had a wonderful family and group of friends to spend time with; a career that had its ups and downs but was largely fulfilling; plenty of good books to read; a cat – but after nearly a quarter century in the same community I’d begun to feel like a lot of my possibilities at home had been exhausted. I felt stuck: stuck in a routine; stuck in one place; stuck in my own skin. I experienced shades of “Groundhog Day” every morning.
So I decided to shake things up.
In a pretty big way.
The week before Thanksgiving 2006 had been a particularly hard one at work. I was at the office late (a not uncommon occurrence at the time) finishing up a few emails when I decided to take a quick look at any job openings in my area. It wasn’t that I hated my job; I was just so restless; so bored with myself. I loaded up craigslist and the first listing I clicked on was a “Teach in Korea” link. It was just a generic add for an English institution outside of Seoul – the kind of add that clutters these types of sites – but it set me on a scavenger hunt for information (not on company time, of course) that would eventually lead me to accept a teaching position at an elementary school in Yeosu, South Korea. I’d been involved in education for a couple of years already and it had long been a desire of mine to see Asia.
This opportunity seemed like a perfect fit.
When my plane touched down at Incheon International Airport after twenty-six sleepless hours of travel I was running on pure adrenaline. Through some time spent playing guitar in a rock band before college I’d been fortunate enough to travel around much of the United States but this was only my second time overseas; the first being a brief two weeks in the United Kingdom and Italy over the 2003/04 Christmas holiday. Nothing in my life’s experience had prepared me for this journey and, now on my second year, I can safely say nothing outside of time spent in Korea would have.
It is a weird and wonderful place.
This blog will consist primarily of impressions of and reflections upon my time spent living, working, and travelling through South Korea, although I should forewarn you that given the nature both of this medium and the author a certain number of self-indulgent detours into fiction seem regrettably inevitable. I’ll try to keep those at a minimum. For the most part I will stick to recounting many of the everyday experiences that never cease to fascinate and bemuse me: walking through open-air fish markets; hiking with Buddhist monks; eating and drinking with Koreans; and all the countless opportunities for comedy that avail themselves to you when you’re a stranger in a strange land, to list but a few.
Above all this blog will be a way for me to preserve the memory of what has become one of the most unique and remarkable seasons of my life. It is my hope that you would find some of these entries of interest.
I suppose that about does it by way of a preface.
Thanks for checking out my little love letter to the Land of Morning Calm.
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