[Golden Pen 2020] The Game is Half the World in Me

Your article by Nguyễn Vũ Thiên Anh submitted for the Golden Pen 2020 contest, the editorial team has only adjusted the layout for appropriateness.

Half the World

Nguyễn Vũ Thiên Anh

Long ago, when keyboards and mice were still a luxury. Back then, all we could think about were handheld game cartridges. Every afternoon around four or five, or even later, we would gather in those dimly lit gaming rooms filled with the smell of sweat, where only an old fan whirred, blowing hot air. We played without knowing day from night.

The gaming stations always had two controllers, meaning you had to play with someone else (or more). Who could dare to go solo and finish a game of “Mega Man” or “Rambo: First Blood” back then? So, we had to play together. And just like that, we became friends.

Making friends as kids was simple; just walk into a game café, stare at someone else’s screen, chat for a bit, and before you knew it, you were friends, part of a group. The gaming room was cramped, dark, full of cracks, occasionally mixed with the damp smell of late summer rain. Humid, dreary, or sometimes hot and noisy. None of us knew what we were looking for, but we huddled in that corner. Forgetting sleep, forgetting this world.

A stifling reality, and another world that was gentle. A bitter world, and another that was sweet. It must have been because the city was growing too fast, drowning out all laughter. Burying every empty yard, burying a privilege of childhood. Adults always told us to do something better than this pointless game. But what were we supposed to do? We didn’t know, and even they didn’t have an answer. The childhood of the past was a fairy tale. Our childhood was buried with each passing day.

That hilltop city, the land of the Cape that adults often talked about? I, as a child, had never known it, and no one ever intended to take me to find it. But I knew what awaited after a “pointless” game. It was the canal nestled behind the hill, less than a kilometer from home, where we would invite each other whenever we finished a “match.” It was “a bunch of crazy kids” playing pranks, teasing dogs, ringing neighbors’ doorbells—a mischievousness even a well-behaved child like me would never dare to do. Was it fun to be lost in another world? For me, it was very fun, even more so. It gave me friends, many friends.

The streets of the 2000s. Apartments sprang up everywhere, and people’s lives rushed by, unable to catch up with dreams. So they left the kids behind, abandoning everything to chase after illusions. Luckily, there was still a place for children to escape, a place where, whenever they didn’t know what to do, they would go and naturally have fun. A place with plenty of friends, where after gaming, we would play hide-and-seek (or skip school) to remember that we still had a childhood.

The creaking sound of the fan needing oil, the popping sound of the screen every meal turned out to be a connection between people. Without those few “pointless” fights, I dare say our childhood wouldn’t have had the sound of voices. Sitting and playing with toys in the bedroom, studying while waiting for night to fall. And thus, it went on, round and round until one day there was no sound of people, and we felt like we were collapsing. Would someone die?

Luckily, there was still that damp gaming room, so we could still have friends to play with, to know we were still alive. And at least it helped us not to collapse in solitude within these four walls of the city.

Saigon, 20 years. The clumsy controllers, rusty, smelling of mildew, still haunt me. That pointless game from back then, who still remembers, who will play with me? Time seems to fly too quickly, slipping out of reach…