the smell of chinatown

[amw]

There is a nostalgic smell from my past, a smell i always associated with Chinatown. I could never quite pin down what it was. It is a slightly acrid smell, not from food or incense, but something else. For the longest time i thought it must be some kind of exotic packing material that only existed in the warehouses of Hong Kong through which all

Comments

[amw]

There has been a lot of writing about how cyberpunk is a genre of modern Orientalism. Even outside of Bladerunner's Asian-inspired cityscapes that kicked off the cyberpunk aesthetic in western visual media, the earliest books already featured megacorps and main characters with Japanese names. In retrospect the whole concept feels tied to 1980s fears that America and the west were in an economic death spiral and 20 minutes into the future the Japanese would own everything.

What makes the genre interesting is that it also became its own thing in Japan, with media made for Japanese audiences by Japanese creators inspired by Moebius and (presumably) Metal Hurlant, 2000 AD etc, so it's not like it's entirely a western fantasy of Asia, it's also sometimes an Asian reflection of itself. I suppose the context is different here, because the cities don't look as exotic, they look more like home turned up to 11, so perhaps its more about the transgressive characters and their adventures?

40+ years since the genre was created, now it's become its whole own retro-futuristic thing, so I'm not sure anyone can really nail down what it means any more.

I like computer games because they're a way of telling stories that can get you more emotionally invested than through a book or show. It's not just the interactivity that helps you feel more a part of the world, but also the fact a lot of AAA games are tens of hours long, so when it's done you really feel like you lived through an adventure. The unfortunate thing is that most games (and often AAA games in particular) don't have especially good stories, not even at the level of mediocre books. So there is great potential here for creating an awesome artistic experience, but it's not often realized. Still, I keep buying more games, because when they do hit, it's really something great, and I love that feeling like I really got transported to another world and experienced a meaningful and moving adventure with characters I grew to love.

Cyberpunk 2077 wasn't really that for me, it was just gaming junk food, a timefiller.