PC gaming in Korea

Here's a great article about the phenomenon of PC gaming in South Korea, written by Jim Rossignol, from UK magazine PC Gamer. It's a great insight into the high-tech Korean gaming culture, which is so different from just about any other country in the world. Due to a combination of different factors, including extensive access to high-speed internet and decades of trade restrictions on Japanese games (thus very little Nintendo or Playstation influence), PC gaming seems to have taken on the same cultural impact as professional sports.

What I find amazing, though, isn't necessarily the deep saturation of gaming in Korean culture, but the fact that most of it is inherently social. That is, the vast majority of games seems to entail playing against other people, whether it's against opponents sitting a few metres away within the same "PC baang" or someone on the Internet who could be on the other side of the country.

The common perception of games among most non-gamers (and even some rabid gamers) in North America is that video games are a very solitary, even anti-social activity. The typical video game player is usually visualized as huddling in the corner by himself with his controller, lost in an electronic game world for hours at a time. But the Koreans are turning that perception on its ear. It seems that for them, gaming is something you do with others, even extending itself to matchmaking and possibly romance.

To quote from the article: "These people want to be sociable, to have things to see and do, but many of them have turned to games, rather than bars and clubbing, to find that solace."

It's really quite fascinating. As a Canadian who was born in Korea but grew up in the west, I find it endlessly interesting to see how the country of my birth and my heritage has grown in the past 20 years, re-inventing itself into one of Asia's most-high tech economic powers. South Korea has come a long way from the country my parents would describe in their stories, about a people living mostly in poverty but always with a strong sense of pride and ambition.

Video games are one of my favourite hobbies, but the dozen-or-so hours I spend on them per week seems to be nothing compared to what many Koreans do on a regular basis. And none of my close friends are into gaming as much as I am, whereas in Korea being a hardcore gamer seems to be the norm.

From the article: "In Sook was the embodiment of what I’d come to expect from Korean gamers: someone deeply enamoured with online gaming to the point where it defined her worldview and provided for her social life. ... Her opinions are echoed throughout Korean culture: games are the best of pastimes, and if you can make friends while playing them, well so much the better. "

Read (via Joystiq)

Dinner by me. Yes, me!

I don't cook. I just don't. I'm pretty lazy when it comes to food -- if it isn't made for me by someone else, then I'll just take the path of least resistance (and least effort) in order to get some nutrients shovelled into my body. Though I do draw the line at most fast foods -- anything that makes me feel like regurgitating the food that I've just swallowed (ugh, McDonald's) doesn't count as a normal meal for me.

Why don't I cook? The simplest explanation would probably be that, before I got married to the most wonderful Chinese-Canadian woman (heck, most wonderful woman period) in the world, it was usually my parents who cooked for me. Not just my mother, which is traditional among most Korean families, but my dad was also very good at whipping up stuff like den-jang jiggeh (bean curd stew) or his own version of kimchi-bokkum-bahb (kimchi fried rice).

After I married my gorgeous and talented wife (no, she isn't reading this over my shoulder, it just sounds like she is), she took over most of the cooking duties. I try to help out wherever I can -- I call myself her "sous-chef" -- by cooking veggies in the frying pan or mixing up stews. But I still don't really cook.

Until tonight! Check out this masterpiece on the right. My wife was busy working late, so I whipped up this culinary tour de force on my own.

All right, I'll admit, most of it is just re-heated dishes or stuff I pulled out of the fridge. The den-jang jiggeh in the top left was made by my mother when she came over to visit a few days ago. She also helped us to make the kimchi you see roughly in the middle. That's gim (dried kelp) you see in the tupperware container near the top.

But sitting on the floral design plate near the bottom left of the photo is my masterpiece: Pan friend Korean dumplings! Cooked by me! Yes, really and truly! Here's a closeup on the right. I cooked up these puppies all on my own, and damn they were good. Sure, it's pretty simplistic, just take 'em out of the bag, throw them onto an oiled frying pan, and try not to burn them. But for me, it was quite an accomplishment.

And for some reason, they were the best dumplings I've ever tasted.

Korean family duties

My wife and I aren't hard-core TV fanatics, but we do have two sessions each week of "must watch TV": Gilmore Girls on Tuesdays (it's funny!), and CSI and Without A Trace on Thursday nights.

Last night's episode of Without A Trace struck a nerve with me: The episode dealt with a Korean family running a deli in New York, and the disappearance of the grown-up daughter of the family. (I won't spoil the plot for you, if you're interested in finding out what happened stay tuned for re-runs.) A large part of the plot deals with the daughter and her brother, both grown-up, and both dealing with the demands of responsibility, having to work at the deli in order to support the family. Their father was in ill-health due to a recent stroke, but even without that complication the two children had been working at the deli for years, probably since they were young teenagers.

I am Korean, my parents have owned businesses in the past (they're retired now), and yes, I worked at these businesses since my teen years. It was something most of my friends, who were all non-Korean, could never really understand. They would ask questions like: Why couldn't I hang out with them after school, or at certain times during the weekends? Why did I have to work at this store, especially since I wasn't even being paid minimum wage?

For me, it was just part of the way life was. The store was our only source of income, and there was no way my parents would be able to handle those long hours, 7 days a week, on their own. For me, it wasn't a choice of vocation or a desire to get some extra spending money -- it was our family's survival. All of our businesses were profitable, but never successful enough to hire outside help, so there we were.

And if I ever felt like complaining, I would reflect on the fact that no matter how hard I worked at the store, my parents always worked much harder, and who did they have to complain to?

It was an interesting episode of Without A Trace, and it definitely struck a chord within me...although I would have enjoyed it more if the actors portraying the Korean family actually were Korean. I don't think I've ever heard a more atrocious accent speaking Korean words...could they not find actual Korean actors to play those parts?