Watching Worlds

You may or may not know, but the world championships for LoL is being played right now. Of course I'm watching and cheering for my favorite team. Funnily enough my favorite team isn't a Chinese team, though I do want China to win out of some strange kind of patriotic feeling. What really surprised me about watching these things is that the Chinese team all seemed to speak really softly with really quiet voices--- which was really strange for me because I was under the impression that pro gamers yelled a lot, and from experience with the international students at my school I've learnt that Chinese students can be loud as fuck. Not being racist or anything- pretty sure I was really loud as well, until at some point I realized I no longer had to yell because there isn't nearly as much noise pollution in Australia.

Basically the Chinese teams are looking really strong right now, but Korea (and I mean South Korea, North KR is too busy re-establishing a communist dictatorship or something) is looking pretty scary. Apparently Korea has the best mid-laner in the world (mid laner is just a field position in LoL), and everyone's talking about how he will just win the game by himself. CN vs KR resulted in a 1-1 tie, and no one got knocked out. There's a lot of rumors being spread about CN cheating because they paused at critical points during both games, and it makes me really sad because I don't think CN cheated but their reputation is being tarnished anyway.

What also makes me really sad is how the CN teams are being portrayed. There was this interview they had with the star player of a CN team, and the guy said something like "maybe we should have some confidence in ourselves, so I'll say that we're going to win the championships" when he was asked "who do you think will win". Then it was translated for the live audience as a subtitle "maybe it's time to get a little cocky"--- and I was just thinking "cocky? is that even politically correct? who the fuck says that in an interview with an international audience?" It was just bad because I actually knew what he said, being fluent in Chinese myself. There was also another translation of the same guy calling the Korean star-mid-laner an "unkillable demon king". It's the kind of thing that's taken too literally and makes you think "wtf". See the English equivalent of that phrase is something like "end game boss", and it's meant to be a display of respect. At least "unkillable demon king" didn't sound insulting given the context, and I think the message got through. If it was taken as an insult I'd be kinda mad though.

Given how I'm just watching these games for fun, I really hate how I'm thinking about all this political stuff. Oh yeah there was also another break out when KR said they didn't get a handshake from CN after the game and they felt angry or something. Though I'm inclined at this point to think that the KR team are being drama queens, I'll blame it again on the media portrayal. Since I don't actually speak Korean, I have no idea what the guy really said. For all I know he could've been like "oh yeah I was a little disappointed I didn't get a handshake" and then the translators were like "NUP THAT'S NOT EXCITING ENOUGH" and decided to say that he was angry. In general the KR team appeared to be really modest and decent people, and they probably had a little grudge against CN- losing to them during the first game and not getting their hands shaken. Understandable. Until it all came out really badly in an interview, which was publicly broadcasted, making KR and CN seem like arch-enemies or something. Makes me wanna facepalm, because the CN team doesn't actually do the post-match handshake in China...AND NEITHER DOES KR. The KR team only picked it up after interaction with the western teams at world championships- and I guess CN was just too slow on the ball (which is really their fault). So the point I'm getting at is- the KR team probably could understand that they didn't get a handshake- because it wasn't custom, not because CN disrespected them or something. To still feel unhappy about it is perfectly fine, but then it came out in an interview and then become a topic of controversy--- which frankly is just disgusting.

The tragedy is that what could've been a great esports event full of professionalism now seems like a Saturday night soap opera. I like the players on both KR and CN teams, I think they play extremely well, and they all seem to have that reserved modest manner which I haven't seen before. The teams could've had a nice relationship, competing, recognizing and then respecting the skills of the other team--- then the company hosting the event decides to make a big deal of trivial events, going so far as to "mis-translate" interviews. If it only happened once I'll call it a coincidence- but given the sequence of events they're obviously trying to make drama, and to make things "exciting". Though I can totally understand why they'd do that--- hell, if I was the CEO I'd probably do worse things to further my company- but as someone who only recently started to enjoy this esports thing, I'm just a little disappointed.

I guess the moral of the story is: nothing in this world is untarnished, even when you think you just want to enjoy something really innocent, there will be something sinister out there to fuck things up for you.