Arcade memories
Thought I’d share another holiday memory from my trip to Taiwan in Sept-Oct of 2007, this time from one of the many arcades littering the country. This particular one was a two storey gamer’s paradise inside a mall in Taoyuan. Now, in addition to lots and lots and lots of video games, there are two things any self-respecting Taiwanese arcade hall will contain; basketball arcade machines and purikura booths.
I had never tried out one of these basketball games before, but that didn’t stop me from challenging JoJo, a native of Taiwan and its arcade machines, to a deathmatch. It didn’t go too well at first, but a combination of male competitive ego, a healthy fear of embarassment, and frustration at losing time and rhythm from having balls fly out of the cage or getting stuck to the basketball rim made me dust myself off the floor and try again. And again and again and again. Here’s a video document of the whole sordid story.
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The other staple of every Taiwanese arcade hall is the purikura photo booth. “Purikura” is an abbreviation of “purinto kurabu”, which is the Japanese pronounciation of the English words “print club”. As you might gather then, these are Japanese inventions and are best described as photo booths that allow you to decorate the photos with cutesy graphics using a pen and touch screen. The finished images are then printed out as tiny stickers which you can share and trade with friends. Like other facets of Japanese pop culture, these machines have spread throughout South-East Asia and can also be found in countries such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, South Korea and Singapore.
Here, then, are some glossy sticker memories from my trip, and, yes, I suck at posing for photos:
