If Paradise Installs Internet, is it still Paradise?

 

After a semester of prelims, proposals, and teaching anthro 102 I decided I needed to unplug and take a rest before I delved head first into my 18-month field research project.  So I dropped my suitcases off in Taipei, slept off the jetlag and hopped the next flight for Bangkok. Bangkok is fun, but not relaxing, so after one night there I took an overnight bus, waited for the tide to come in, took a 4 hour boat ride, and then a motorcycle taxi to this remote little resort (broadly defined) I had stayed at the year before. 

Last year was my first time on this island.  I was in awe over the white sand beach, the clear blue water of the bay, and the lack of all the technology that has become an extension of myself.  It was, I will admit, difficult for me to so thoroughly unplug.  I even packed my little computer despite having been told before hand that the resort had no Internet connection.  After the first few days, I didn’t miss my cell phone or computer at all.  No communication with the outside world meant that for the first time since I began school at the age of 4, I had nothing I had to do.

When I returned this year, about a week ago (I think, but I do not keep track of the days while I am here) I expected, and wanted, that same experience.  When I arrived everything looked more or less the same, except that there were more people here than before.  The prices had all been raised, we were told, because the owner was improving the bungalows.  When my boyfriend and I got to our bungalow we found a fresh coat of paint and a door on the bathroom (last year it had only been separated from the main room by a sarong hanging from the ceiling).  We dropped off our backpacks and leisurely made our way to the restaurant for a bite to eat.

The restaurant also looked the same. It is a raised platform with a roof and no walls – perfect view of the sea. The sound of the ocean and the call of the geckos crawling on the ceiling above us was obscured by the conversations of the new influx of people, but it was not unpleasant.  I could hear German (tourists), Burmese (the servers), Thai (the owners or managers), and at least 3 different dialects of English (North American, British, and Australian).  There was also something strange.  Though most of the tables were abuzz with conversation, there were a couple tables of people silently staring into computer screens. 

I was too tired from the trip here to ask anyone about the laptops that evening, but I did inquire so first thing the next morning. Sure enough, the owners had installed WiFi since my last visit. 

Now I know I could have left my computer in Taipei, but I didn’t.  I brought my computer because I bring it with me everywhere, and even though I was not expecting a connection here, I like to have my laptop here so that in case of emergency I can walk to town (3km away) and contact friends and family as needed. Besides, under the conditions I expected, even with my computer, I would have been cut off because laptop or not there was still no Internet easily accessible…

But now there is Internet here…

I came here to relax and unplug, but at this very moment I am staring out at the Andaman and blogging.

I avoided getting online for the first 2 days, but the conundrum of the Internet coming to my island paradise kept rolling around in my head until I just had to get it out. This isn’t stressing me out – exactly – but I do now feel compelled to check my email and Facebook page daily.  This is counterproductive.  The point of being here is to not feel compelled to do anything at all, and yet at the same time there is a comfort in being able to communicate with the outside world. 

I have not yet decided whether or not I like that there is now Internet here (as my Facebook friends have already seen).  Last year it took me a week to fully relax and take on the laid back island pace of life; perhaps I have just not yet reached that point.       

The Oddities of Anthropoloogy

 

Throughout my career as a graduate student I have been constantly told of the importance of networking.  It is not always phrased as networking, but the subtext is the same.  Attend conferences, connect with people from other departments or schools, present at conferences, go to departmental social gatherings, and do not forget to publish.

As I tend to be shy, this can be overwhelming, but that is for a different post a different day.

In order to finish my PhD I will be heading to Taiwan to do field research.  The last time I was in Taiwan I stayed for 9 months for the purpose of studying Chinese and doing preliminary research.  Coming home was in many ways harder than going there (Coming Home or Leaving Home?). When I returned to school I found my shared office half populated by people I did not know; the login for the computer had changed, some of the requirements for the job had changed, and for the first time since I began grad school, I was not living on campus.  I had returned home to feel like a foreigner all over again, and this made networking hard as I had to readjust to new circumstances all over again. (This was my third major life change in a rather short time period, so at this point it is possible that I have simply been “out of it” continuously for the last year.)

I have been back for 1 semester, but I have not, in all that time, gotten myself anywhere.  The entire semester was filled with bureaucratic paperwork all in the quest to return to Taiwan to finish my studies.  It was mostly a bore and a frustration.  Only my job offered me any sort of intellectual stimulation.  (I thank-whatever-god-you-believe-in for my job.)  I have not even had the chance to reconnect with my old WoW guild (I<3TrN) despite my dearest desire to do so.  It’s been 2 years….I wonder if I can go back?

So here I am preparing to leave in 17 days.  I will essentially disappear off the face of the earth for the next 18 months.  The time difference will make connecting with my old guild unrealistic, the distance will make conference participation unobtainable, and I can only guess at what changes my department will go through during my absence.  To get ahead I need to network, but to be an anthropologist I have to disappear. By the time I return home I will have been out of the loop for a total of 3 years. I fear I will just have to start all over again.     

Preparing for Fieldwork

A wise man told me recently that these last few weeks will be the hardest.  I am leaving for Taipei in 19 days to do my dissertation research.  This will be my 2nd time living in Taipei and somehow I find the opening statement strangely true.

My language ability is stronger, I know where I will be staying, and I actually have friends living in Taipei; yet I am more nervous about returning than I ever was going in the first place.  Not that it is all just nerves.  Every time I step out into the whirlwind of snow outside I cannot wait to get back to Taipei.  It was 75F there today.

I left a new boyfriend back there too.  We have been apart from each other longer than we were together. He says we’ll have to start over from scratch if we want to date when I return.  I think he is right.  A lack of shared experience can really pull people apart. I do not think my chosen career path is particularly conducive to long term relationships.  The few colleagues I have spoken with on the matter all agreed.  Not that any of us are attempting a monastic lifestyle or anything, just recognizing reality for what it is.

It takes a special kind of person to live with a wanderer.

To add icing to the cake, I still don’t have my visa, funding, or IRB approval yet.  I think it might technically be more work to get to the field than it is to actually do the fieldwork.

When A Geek Decorates for Halloween

Everyone needs to put down the books and just have a little fun sometimes…but my inner geek never sleeps ^^

 

The pictures aren’t the clearest, but these are pumpkins from this last Halloween.  The one on the left is a copy of one that has been all over the Internet, and needs no introduction.  The one on the right maybe less obvious; it’s the Chinese character pronounced like “boo”

Funding Justifications

This is what I have been up to lately …

Examining games as an aspect of culture may still be under-developed, but assumptions about digital games abound within public and academic discourses. Many people look at digital games as only a thing which is addictive and damaging without taking the time to look beyond the rare sensational cases that happen to make the evening news. This should not be surprising. Once upon a time the same dystopian fears were expressed about radio, television, and the personal computer. New technology consistently frightens people even as it is accepted by others. This is not, however, an inconsequential historical cycle. These fears lead to uninformed laws and regulations being passed, the blocking of beneficial progress, and the deepening of the class gap (due in large part to unequal access to technologically related opportunities). This is not to suggest that all technology is “good” and that regulation should be done away with completely. Technology is neutral; it is how technology is used that begs moral questions. Therefore, it is imperative that social sciences, such as anthropology, take the time to look at technology, in all of its forms, so that these social practices can be understood and informed decisions can be made.

When Work and Home Conflict

For 6 years I dated a gamer.  It was during this time that I stumbled upon MMOs as a possible research site.  I was pacing in the living room, thinking out loud about what I would do for my first class research assignment of grad school.  My then boyfriend was half listening to my rambling while the rest of his attention was absorbed in hunting Jaggedy-Ear Jack in FFXI. This became my introduction to my first synthetic world.

I did that paper on FFXI and later moved on to WoW - the site of my MA research -  and other worlds.  Most of the games I played, whether for school or for pleasure, I played with him.  We logged in and interacted with each other in both physical space and through our avatars. Over time, our play diverged and we stopped interacting online as frequently; until eventually I switched servers in order to join a guild that was more understanding of my inability to raid 5 nights a week.

I had in the past run with power gamers, but those days were over.  Not that I didn’t enjoy them, but I had a thesis to write, then defend, and a PhD to begin.  Most of the evenings that I did play my boyfriend was also playing, but we were no longer playing together.  Though we were still playing the same game, we played with different groups of people and wore headphones to voice chat with our respective guilds; and so even sitting next to each other we were, in fact, worlds away from each other. 

My boyfriend went through a few jobs during this time until he gave up looking and delved full time into his synthetic world.  He could no longer afford the game I was at this time still playing, but had switched to a free to play game that worked on a pay per item profit model.  In order to make up for his inability to pay for items he spent endless hours grinding and farming to obtain the things he wanted.  He regularly began playing before noon and continued well into the night - frequently playing until sunrise.

I was a full time PhD student by this time, working that first year as a waitress and the next as a TA.  When I would arrive home I was expected to make dinner and if I wanted to live in a clean apartment it was up to me to clean it.  I began to hate the game. 

I hated the game he played and felt that hatred every time I walked into the house.  I tried spending more time outside of the house (probably a good idea anyway for a shy girl trying to be an anthropologist) but every time someone asked me where my boyfriend was that night I felt the hatred for that game arise anew. 

With this hate I also experienced a kind of intellectual schism.  I hated a game and yet I was a game scholar.  I still believed that "Everquest widows" were nongamers who just didn’t understand and yet I was becoming one myself (no he didn’t play Everquest, but same idea). I was myself a gamer! I continued to play a MMO myself, although, as time passed, I found that my enjoyment dwindled, and even playing a different game with people I had been playing with for a couple of years already, reminded me of how much I hated that other game.

A love/hate war had erupted within me and it was frightening. I had just spent 4 years in school laying the foundations to be an anthropological game scholar, my master’s thesis was based on a MMO, and my first publication - on DKP - was about to come out. In truth, I had no desire to change directions academically, but what was happening in my private life was causing a kind of ethical turmoil in my head. 

What was happening was directly related to my work and yet was something I would speak about to no one.  Was this really fair?  I had no problems writing all about the splintering of one of the largest guilds in WoW and the storm that it had caused, but I was unable to put myself in the position of informant.  Life removed from the written word is just so much easier to bear. 

I eventually left my boyfriend.  It wasn’t because of the game.  He said something to me that simply crossed the line of acceptability and I ended it right there.  It was unplanned, a snap decision. It was almost 1 year ago now. 

So why I am writing this now? Its not because of him.  I am over that.  In retrospect, I think I was over him before I even left him, I just couldn’t see it at the time.  I write this because of the peace that I have academically found with the whole situation.  Yes, it took me a while, but we can’t all be perfect and hindsight is so bitter-sweetly 20/20.

In the end what I realized was that I never hated that game.  The problem was not the game, the problem was the person.  I was not a game scholar that hated a game nor an anthropologist who couldn’t take what she dished out.  I simply needed time to process the reality of the situation before I could put it into words ... and so here it is. 

Coming Home or Leaving Home?

There are many books, articles and blogs out there that discuss culture shock.  The experience of moving into a different culture; but what of coming home?  What about the culture shock one feels when returning to the culture they originally come from?

I was warned before I left for Taiwan that I would experience culture shock upon returning to the U.S., but it was hard at the time to imagine what could possibly seem foreign to me. I have been back in the U.S. now for 47 hours and it is weird.In some respects I feel like I am home because I am staying with my family.  My family always feels like home to me.  In other respects, however, I feel like a foreigner.

I woke up in my aunt’s house in the middle of night last night still jet lagged and hungry for lunch.  As I slowly walked from the spare bedroom to the kitchen I was amazed at how spacious her house was. Now, I consciously recognize that by American standards this house is average in size, not big; but it felt like a journey to get all the way from the bedroom to the kitchen. 

The temperature also feels not quite right.  To start with, I have actually gotten used to using Celsius, which I never thought I would. When I Skyped with a friend from Taipei yesterday and told her that is was 23° she agreed that it was cold.  That very day, when I went to campus, I passed by people wearing shorts and tee-shirts...because it is 73° Fahrenheit! It is nice out by Wisconsin standards.  Meanwhile, it still feels like winter to me.