Training the Body for China was a difficult read in some ways for me. I grew up with little understanding of sports or sports culture. The idea of spending evenings rooting for teams never entered my household. Beyond that, when I was assigned to play sports, I never felt any pressure to do well. This was due to a combination of my parents not caring, the fact that I was too small of a child to participate in contact sports and that I was asthmatic, but overall it underemphasis sports in my formative years. Because of this, I found that, while I understood what the author was saying regarding sports in China, I couldn’t relate it back to US culture as well. The section where they discuss the ranking in society of athletes and other professions was odd to me. I feel like there was an intended comparison to western culture but I don’t feel like I got it. I know that in the US sports professionals are revered but I could not tell you where they would be ranked. For that matter, I don’t know where I would rank them. Sports players are almost another world to me.
What I could relate to was the struggle of ranking physical or intellectual pursuits. In China, the book references that athletes are ranked above most manual labor but below more intellectual pursuits. This reminded me of the western struggle to rank activities that could be called non physical sports. Things like Chess and Video games, the former being an Olympic activities at one point, brings the contradiction to light. Is it only the physical nature of an activity that makes it a sport? If that is the case, where does that leave emerging activities? I have watched this argument play out in regards to esports, or professional gaming. For a while, ESPN, what I believe is the main US TV sports network (correct me if I’m wrong) broadcast Halo matches. Even now it shows poker games. The question of these activities being labeled sports is an interesting one to me and one that I don’t really know how to answer. In any case, it seems like the Chinese were having similar issues of classification too.
As for the final essay, I will admit I don’t really know what I want to do. I have been thinking about this since Maggie sent out the email, and it has been in the back of my mind since the assignment sheet was handed out, but I am at a loss. Currently I am thinking I want to examine themes and pacing between games developed in the US and similar titles coming from former Soviet bloc countries, but I don’t know where I would get academic sources regarding the games. There seems to be a pretty good base of knowledge for American games, but the analysis for the Eastern European titles is lacking.
The titles I am thinking about from Eastern Europe are Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light, the Stalker games, the Arma series, Botanicula and Machinarium. The Western equivalents would be the Battlefield series, the Call of Duty series, SpecOps the Line and Limbo. I’m still working through which titles. I want to drop the total number but still compare and contrast in a one to one fashion.
As for sources, here is a short list of stuff I have found.
http://theconversation.com/what-call-of-duty-can-tell-us-about-us-foreign-policy-35642
http://theconversation.com/realistic-war-games-have-collateral-damage-of-their-own-18976