(video set to play at sweet ending)
I know that I’m really critical when it comes to the topic of eSports and “professional” online gaming, but when I read on some LoL site about how the Koreans at a recent LoL tournament went all Hulkamania and annihilated all of the competition, I still felt that cultural pride, that even in something as silly as pro-gaming. Perhaps the old hat jokes about Koreans being the best at Starcraft and Counterstrike can take the backseat to something that I’m actually interested in like League.
Anyway, I came across more information about the tournament about how in the finals of this tournament, the Koreans not just beat the Chinese team, but absolutely owned them. 2-0 in a best of three, and it apparently wasn’t even close. Since I’m familiar enough with the game mechanics to understand what I’d be watching, I took some time to watch the deciding game just to see for myself just how badly Korea whooped up on the Chinese, because I’m sadistic and petty like that.
It’s worth mentioning that this entire tournament took place in Shanghai, so 99% of the people in attendance were Chinese and were very much backing and in support of the Chinese team. They would stereotypically ooh and ahh over the littlest things that the Chinese team would do, from simply selecting a champion, locking in, to even littler things like taking a step towards an opponent or even placing a ward.
And this is what made everything that much sweeter in the end when the Koreans gg easy destroyed the Chinese team.
In a national display of poor sportsmanship, the entire crowd was dead silent and were practically sitting on their hands as the Koreans rose from their machines and gave each other a few modestly celebratory fives. There was no applause anywhere, and the brief camera panning of the crowd showed hundreds of butt-hurt Chinks disappointed at watching their native team getting roughshod on their home soil.
Typically in these events, win or lose, both parties tend to meet at center stage for the post-match good-game handshakes, but as the Koreans emerged onto the stage, the Chinese losers were all sitting at their machines, probably fuming over how badly they had just gotten owned. The Koreans clearly taking the high road and not wanting to be left hanging, took the initiative to go to Loserville and get some lame-duck handshakes from the residents. But the best was the Chinese top-laner, who was the penultimate stereotypical teenage Chinese gamer kid; chubby, glasses, Commie buzzcut, who was clearly the most butt-hurt over the loss (mostly because he fed the Koreans like his name were “Il-Mee”), and gave one handshake, and even when the opposing Korean top-laner tried to give him a friendly bro-hug, completely disrespected him and bent over to pretend to tie his shoe or something, but probably to hide his tears of shame.
Doesn’t matter. I ain’t mad, but I also ain’t surprised. Typical Chinese arrogance at expecting nothing but victory, but acting like a bunch of asshole losers when it doesn’t go their way. It’s fine though, because if it were up to me, I wouldn’t have this any other way. I love winning on hostile territory, and being underestimated. It makes every victory sweeter when not only the opponent is disappointed, but everyone there who was rooting for them too.
