Monday,
February 4, 2002.
THE TRULY SPECIAL OLYMPICS
My cousin, Young, ended up staying at our house for the weekend. The older one, Long Round, stayed at my mom's while she prepared the other room (previously my childhood bedroom).
The only thing I learned about Brazilian culture so far is that King of Fighters is VERY POPULAR in the arcades there (he told me). He kicked my ass all over the 2-D battlefield on my Dreamcast.
Tekken Tag was definitely in my favor, and I honestly surprised him enough to say,
"Wow! You're good at this."
We played my driving game (Project Gotham Racing) and I outraced him in that as well. Half of the time I was purposefully going the wrong direction and playing demolition derby with him.
He was better at me in Street Fighter Alpha though.
Young and I were up playing video games until 1:30 in the morning on Friday (I stayed up until 3 A.M. though).
PAC MAN HAD AN EATING DISORDER
On Saturday, we took both of them to the two malls in our area.
At the first mall, I tried to buy them a game to play on my Playstation 2, but they were too polite to pick one once they figured out I was not buying it for myself.
Then we took them to the arcade at another mall. I bought about $15 in tokens and dumped a fistful into each of their hands. It reminded me of my frequent escapist trips to the arcade in college and medschool. Back then, freedom was being ten feet from my favorite game with five dollars worth of quarters in hand.
We had common ground in Tekken 4. They're pretty good (Brazilian arcade-trained) and I'm *ahem* pretty good (PS2 home-trained with arcade joystick ... oh the shame).
One of my favorite things about fighting games (other than seeing pixelated babes doing lethal gymnastic combinations) are the distinct personalities given to each character, reflected through their appearance, costume, and fighting styles. Sometimes it's fun to see what movie character they were based on or what ethnic stereotype they're playing with (or trying to avoid).
I also like to see who likes to play who. A person's favorite fighting persona is like a little Rorschach test into their alter-ego.
Young likes playing the big American bad-ass with the nuclear punch, Paul Hiroshima er ... Phoenix.
What does his choice say about him? Just that, despite his quiet nature, he likes playing characters opposite of him. Big, hairy, blonde - real American bad boys. Either that or he just wanted to use the character that was easiest to learn.
I couldn't take it easy on him (especially since I haven't played in 4-6 months) but I managed to win most of the time.
Next was his older brother (23), Long Round. He chose Hwoarang, the Tae Kwon Do kicker as well.
"He's Korean," he told me.
"Yeah. I know," I smiled, nervous inside.
Korean Brazilian style versus Half-Korean American style. It was a pretty tough series of matches. He was much better than his brother. I think he might have been better than me. He had a lot of little tricks and was a little too good with throws. When he got me into a corner, I was usually just a training dummy until the end of the round.
My biggest advantage was that I do what most Hwoarang players instinctively train themselves not to do. I used my weaker punches instead of my far more powerful kicks.
It took a couple of matches, but after awhile I started winning again. Being a pretty hardcore player, Long Round switched characters to see if he could exploit any new weaknesses of mine. He used the multi-style Jackie Chan character, but my flurry of fists and kicks hardly gave him time to change stances.
After that he switched to Heihachi, the evil old warlord. Originally Japanese, per the storyline, he was so evil that his Japanese citizenship was revoked. I found that story fascinating (the makers of the game are Japanese).
Anyways, that match didn't last long either and eventually Long Round went off to play a wrestling game, after the win:lose ratio started favoring me.
What did his arcade Rorschach test tell me about him? Mostly what I already knew. That Long Round is a highly competitive person (chose some of the most difficult characters to learn and was good at them), who takes pride in himself and in winning (variety of styles and tricks used). He doesn't like losing either.
Myself, I played the Korean K-pop punk with the dancing kicks and the orange hair (Hwoarang). I'm sure I don't need to explain this choice.
My other best character is the white-haired leather-pants sadist, Lee Chaowan. He's supposedly an estranged Chinese orphan with no real family or sense of belonging (fighting style based on the end-villain in Drunken Master 2) but I prefer to think of him as a self-loathing misanthropic hapa.
Hrmm ... Screw the ink blots. I'm getting off of this couch now.
BLOOD
I still can't get over the fact that for once I have Korean relatives related to me by blood and not by law (as in Amy's extended family). The only others I've met was my grandma.
And my mom doesn't want me to visit her in Korea else the government will "penalize" her for having "rich American" relatives.
LONG ROUND
Long Round hung out in my room a bit and he really seemed to warm up after mutual respect was gained in video combat.
He inspected each of my game CDs and movies as well. I lent him a few that I think he'll appreciate.
I tried to get him to watch some of my favorite Korean movies though, but he just smiled and said,
"Korean movies aren't so good."
( ... It's a good thing he's related to me.)
He's actually quite the sports person too. Soccer, hockey, he even wants to join our gym this week.
He also loves American movies. He actually goes to see movies by himself and hence has seen just about everything out right now.
What else ... he also thinks HyoLee is the prettiest one in FinKL. Thinks Ha Ri Su, the transgender is actually pretty attractive. And he likes girls with "big eyes." (Not a euphemism.) He doesn't like Baby VOX though, which ... I don't know ... I can't quite comprehend.
I even showed my cousins my drawings at one point.
ME: "This one I modelled after Jin from FinKL ... This one I was looking at Eun Jin from BabyVOX ... Another one of Jin ... This one is Jun Ji Hyun from Yupgi Girl ..."
LONG ROUND: "I, uh, don't really know any of the names of these people."
ME: "Right! Of course you don't. Sorry...."
I keep forgetting. I'm the weird one.
I think my cousins are quite fascinating which is why I'm listing all of their qualities and interests here.