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.
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.
I went out to dinner with a friend the other day and he said the strangest thing. We were in the middle of a conversation when I got distracted by something. After the distraction passed, my friend said, "Ok, to get back to the anthropology, so in Team Fortress 2..."
Now, I am in Taiwan to study video games, so perhaps it should not seem odd to me that my friend would refer to our discussion of video games as anthropology, but it did. It struck me because I had not been thinking of terms of research all night.
My friend had called me up and asked if I wanted to get dinner. I had been studying all day for prelims and so I welcomed the break. I put my studying aside and immediately turned my attention away from anthropology and onto food…so much so in fact that it didn’t even immediately register when our conversation turned to Team Fortress 2. Why would it? We talk about video games all the time. It was normal.
I knew before I came to Taiwan that fieldwork was not confined to formal interviews or that it ever took place in contrived settings. I learned from my previous research that the best information is that which I trip over when I am not looking for it. Even so, here I am, still being surprised when I trip again.
So much for that break.
