Video Games and Me

Fascination
When I was young, I was charmed by video games. They were something completely foreign to my existence. In the house that I lived in as a small child, we didn't have video games. Visiting relatives, however, basically introduced me to the concept of video games. Cousins often had a Super Nintendo or a Sega Mega Drive game system hooked up to a TV, and I was amazed. I recall being completely enchanted by these games, and playing Sonic and Mario games for as long as I could (until my parent's called me away for a meal or to start the long drive home) in the basements of houses belong to my aunts and uncles. Since it was something that was completely absent from my normal existence, playing video games at relatives' houses was often a major source of excitement and joy.

Immersion
Probably the most revolutionary event of my pre-high school youth was when my family bought a computer. When I was small my father and my sister and I had played Prince of Persia together, but when in late 1999 our family got a (at the time) new and powerful desktop machine, it changed everything. We bought Myst and Might and Magic VI. I wasn't old enough to understand Myst, but Might and Magic VI was a bit easier for me to grasp. I was already familiar with stories of heroes, wizards, swords, and dragons due to an introduction to Dragonlance from my sister. I loved Might and Magic VI. I loved it so much that I probably played the game through three times, and I got other games in the series (Might and Magic VII and VIII) based purely off of my love of the first game. I recall spending hours playing Starcraft and the Diablo games. When a classmate introduced me to emulators, it might have been the beginning of my long and glorious career of getting-things-for-free-online-rather-than-paying-for-them-in-stores. Armed with a Super Nintendo Emulator, various Marios, Final Fantasys were available to me. Some of the best memories I have of video games are of RPGs like the various Final Fantasy games and Tales of Phantasia. To me, these games were like novels. I usually used a set button to speed through boring random battles and walking at a high speed (another benefit of using an emulator rather than a real console) so that I could quickly get to the dialogues or the next key point in the progression of the plot. Naturally, most of my memories of these games are not of fighting of monsters, but rather are about the relationships between the characters, the experiences that they go through, and their reactions. Looking back, they really feel like interactive novels. At some point, we got a N64 and later a Playstation 2. I vaguely recall getting a Gameboy at some point too. There were certainly some games from these consoles that I spend many hours on and enjoyed (such as FFX and Zelda), but I don't have as many memories of other console games. I think that, in general, they tended to be simpler, with less of a focus on story, characters, and plot, and with more of a focus on simple repetitive action.

Rejection
Now I look back at how many hours a spent playing video games with a bit of a shudder. Calculating just for the Final Fantasy series, I have no doubt that if the same number of hours had been devoted to a language class I could have learned French, German, or Spanish up to a decent level. Of course, I didn't have the same desire for productivity back then as I do now, and it is likely that I wouldn't have had the motivation to learn a language or do something similar back at that age, but I look back on those hours and wish that I could re-use them more productively, somehow. Naturally, I do not consider all of the hours I spent playing video games to be wasted. Many, but not all. As I mentioned earlier, some of the games that focused more on character and story were more like novels to me, and I still think back, remember, and enjoy those stories. Others, however, had no real story or progression, I would quickly cut them out of my past if I could. Although I hadn't reached this level of reasoning at age 18, arriving at Kalamazoo College helped me to realize how enjoyable it was to socialize, and I basically gave up video games as soon as I arrived there. It was seriously a big change. In middle school and high school I probably spent most of my time in the evenings after school either reading (mostly fantasy novels or Dungeons and Dragons books late into the night) or playing video games. After arriving at college though (Autumn of 2006), I basically didn't touch video games until January of 2009. For more than two years video games were simply less interesting than spending time with the circus club, hanging out with new friends, exploring what it was like to flirt, getting my schoolwork done on time, and generally being a young college student with other young college students. I look back and think how young and foolish I was then, but it was certainly an improvement over who I was in high school.

Acceptance
In January of 2009, to guard against boredom and the cold winter, I spend a few weeks downloading and playing amateur RPG games on my computer. They were story- and character-focused, creative, and very enjoyable to play. Once I started my spring semester and life picked up pace again, however, I didn't touch games again until more than a year later. In spring of 2010, with my graduation a week or so away, and my schoolwork basically finished, I didn't really have any projects on my plate, so to keep myself from boredom I again spent a few days of playing games, this time more casual games from Kongregate, which my roommates had introduced me to. The following winter I spent a week or two obsessed with Spore, and I just finished a two week obsession over Divine Divinity.

I think I have a general pattern, now: I will spend a week or two each year playing a video game intensely, and then not touch video games for the rest of my year. I think that works okay for me. I know that I don't have to do something productive (such as study/learn something new) constantly, and the joy and relaxation that is brought from slaying dragons or saving the world can be pretty nice too. I still have mixed feelings, and I still have a desire to spend more of my waking hours doing productive things, but I find more and more the great difference between my desires and expectations as opposed to my reality. Looking at it logically, though, I don't really see how spending 10 hours non-productively playing a video game is any better or worse than spending 10 hours non-productively watching bad movies or crappy TV shows, watching sport games, or reading low-quality novels. Enjoyment is what counts in recreation time, right?

Halloween(s)

I had two distinct experiences as a part of Halloween celebrations this year: one at work, and one out on the town, each with different level of fun.

A tired Mrs. Wei and a restless Allie

The first was the Halloween party that my preschool put on for the children and for the parents. In my mind this started as early as Thursday evening, when I helped Mrs. Wei carve a pumpkin (read: carved it for her). Mrs. Wei is one of the teachers at my preschool, a motherly figure with her own 5 year old daughter, Allie. Allie likes me a lot, and Mrs. Wei is very nice to me, so I guess I am kind of a friend of the family. I have told Mrs. Wei that if she ever needs someone to watch over Allie she can just give me a call. Mrs. Wei had asked me to help her carve a pumpkin, and I was excited to have an opportunity to attempt the cannibal pumpkin concept. Thursday we stayed at the preschool after the kids had left and got a table all covered with plastic, got some knives for the carving itself, and went to it. I used a marker to draw on our goal, and I got to it. Mostly I cut things out, but I recruited Mrs. Wei's help for some of the parts that I had clearly marked, so after explaining to her how it should be cut I got to take some small breaks to chit chat with the other three or four people that had also stayed after. I even got Allie to help me out (a little bit) in taking out the 'guts' of the pumpkin. In the end, although we didn't have access to as big of a pumpkin as I would have liked, I am quite pleased with how it turned out. One of the Chinese teachers took some pictures with her cell phone, but I haven't gotten a hold of those yet. I will certainly put them up here when I am able to, but for now, you will have to be satisfied to know that my creation was based off of, and ended up looking like, this. [EDIT: Pictures added. Not enough to show the final creation, though. :( ]

Except for the teeth the pumpkin is finished being carved.

On Friday, although I went to work, we did not teach class. The whole morning was spent between playing with the kids, preparing for the afternoon's party, and carving a pumpkin. I had the kids help me pull the guts out, which some of them liked and some of them didn't. They gripped the little seeds very gingerly and reached into the pumpkin to grab more very tentatively. It was cute to watch them do something so completely new and completely foreign to them. After lunchtime, however, things really started to get going. We re-arranged the cafeteria room, my friend Lao Zhou (a juggler) arrived, and the parent's started to show up. I was the MJ of the event, so once everyone was there, I got on stage to give everyone a quick welcome and to introduce the activities and entertainments of the afternoon (we got a magician too). It was actually pretty hectic, between some of the Chinese staff trying to have 2- and 3-year-olds play musical chairs, the pumpkin pie competition (I was one of the taste judges, and I had to spit one out), and intense disagreements between the bosses (as there always is here). As it wrapped up though, I was helping the other staff prepare for the evening's party. The afternoon party was just for the little kids (ages 2-4) and their families, while we had a separate party in the evening for the bigger kids (ages 5-7). The best part, by far, of the evening party was the haunted house. We all put a lot of work into moving things around and setting everything up in order to turn the cafeteria and two adjacent classrooms into a scary place for the families and for the children. Although the jack-o-lantern carving contest and bobbing for apples definitely had their fun moments, the haunted house was, hands down, the best part of the evening. After the parents and kids left some of the people at work planned to have some kind of an after party, but I preferred to go home and rest. I really had to work to get out of there, since my bosses wanted me to stay for the after party, but I made it clear that I would rather go home, so home I went.

Saturday (pre-5pm) was possibly one of the least productive days of my time here, ever. I blame this partially on Federico, since he recommended the game Spore to me, and then I went to a local electronics market and got it for 50元 (about $7 U.S.). I played Spore for pretty much the whole day on Saturday. I am amazed at how I looked up at the clock and HOURS had passed. Thankfully, I have a dinner date with a friend that evening, otherwise I might have kept playing until midnight (as I did on the next night, Sunday). I left home a little after five o’clock in order to meet my friend Fan Rong near NanLuoGuXiang. She had read a good review of a pizza place online, and she wanted to check it out. I was disgusted by the concept of YangRouChuaner Pizza and Kung Pao Chicken Pizza (which are apparently the famous house specialties), but we got a half-Italian half-African (banana and mango) pizza, which was satisfying enough. After dinner we took a short walk to the Peng Hao Theater (one of my favorite theaters in Beijing) for Beijing Improv’s special Halloween improv show. Beijing Improv is always a blast, but this one was a little different, since it was a special Halloween show. They started out by making up (read: improvising) a scary story. It ended up involving the demise of a little town called Spoon River, where the main industry was a spoon factory (what else?). Through a combination of the village drunk starting a fork craze and the trend of mudslides in the town everyone ended up dying horrible deaths. After that short into piece, the group launched into more classic improv games, most of which made for wonderful entertainment. After nearly two hours of laughing, giving the performers suggestions, and enjoying myself thoroughly the show was over. Fan Rong had to meet someone in Sanlitun, but we had some time before that so we were joined by Duoyi (a friend from improv workshops) and we all strolled over to 46 Fangjia Hutong (and here), where we stopped at the Hot Cat Club. I was pleasantly surprised to find a local ska band ripping it up, and I enjoyed their music immensely. After whiling away some time with Jenga we hopped in a cab to go to the Sanlitun and meet up with improv people. I ended up dancing at Tun with some of the improv performers of the evening and their friends. I hadn’t been dancing in soooo long. I loved it. I have always been an early sleeper though, so I went home a little after 2 in the morning. Unexpectedly, I got a phone call from Fan Rong around 5, at which point she told me that the friend she had expected to spend the night with had bailed on her and she needed a place to stay. She knew that I had an air mattress, and I told her that it was fine if she wanted to crash there. I let her in, and then crashed again. Due to my sleeping habits, I was naturally awake at around 9 the next morning… and I have been tired ever since. I met another friend for lunch, and we talked about all kind of things, from the rising importance of China in the world to all the dirty work that the CIA has done throughout Latin America. It was really nice to have such a good talk. I spent the rest of the day relaxing at home, not even going out to see David Cooper’s band, The Red Pirates, that evening.

All in all, it was a SUPER enjoyable weekend. The video game, the improv show, going out dancing, and spending time with old friends made for a great couple of days. It makes me wish that I didn’t have work Mon-Fri.