Dear Readers,
Thank you for coming here!
If you think this is a post advocating for healthy corporate culture, you are in for a treat! A relaxing one.
While my work continues allows me some free time and my portfolio continues burning, I continue spending a lot of time in gaming.
This time around, I really enjoyed Gujian 3, an ARPG based on ancient Chinese legends.
Just to be clear, while this game can pretty much represent the highest level of Chinese made single player games in 2018 when the game was release, it is still not quite on par with the 3A games out there in many aspects.
What struck me, however, is the “familiar” feeling brought by the background setting of the game.
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| From Internet |
The story is based on ancient Chinese legends.
As someone with Chinese education and background, I have no problem understanding the concepts and the famous characters.
The settings are so familiar that the story progression feels so smooth.
As a result, the story becomes attractive to a point that I start digging for more details about the story.
Less than two hours into the game, I could not helping searching the “Journal” for more details about “Soul Nourishing Ground” (“养魂地”).
This is absolutely the first time that I have taken the initiative to search for the “Journal” of a game. Typically, I just ignore them entirely as they do not affect the game play.
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| From Internet |
As the game progresses, I start to see even more familiar things.
In the private space where a “Home” is built, I even see the cooktop that is still being used in my hometown, not exactly the same but the similarity is unconcealable.
Not to mention the weapons, armor and fighting mechanisms. They mimic closely what is described in the KungFu novels and movies.
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| From Internet |
These “familiar” feelings just make me feel more connected to the game and the characters in the game.
I have to say cultural similarity is another source of satisfaction.
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| From Internet |
Culture does matter to a person’s identify.
We get the exposure while growing up and the culture ends up engraving into our head.
Therefore, it is almost impossible to take another culture as native.
In other words, we cannot choose.
If life is an RPG, our birth place and early experiences largely determine where our primary playground will be.
We can try to build another character in another place and culture, but it is destined to be in the “Brutal” difficulty.
First, we have to unplug ourselves from the environment we grow up in and plug ourselves into the new system. This means we have to endure and adapt without the support of family and friends.
That is exactly why first generation of migrants almost always have tough lives.
Second, most likely we will end up outside of the mainstream.
America is an exception. The migrants dominated the natives with superior war skills and cold blood. But can you imagine a president of Asia origin in the next decade?
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| From Internet |
But that does not mean we cannot have a good life, depending how we define “good”.
From the perspective of Materialists, it is entirely possible.
Even some slaves enjoyed their lives.
And during the financial crisis, slaves did have better lives thanks to their masters, while the workers in the north could not find jobs and starve and freeze to death.
It also depends on what era we live in. In flourishing times, dogs live better than man.
Till next time!
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