At least I think this is the third time I've had a racism themed blog. But a quick follow up on my Bioshock review. I played through the game again on easy to harvest the Little Sisters and get the different ending, and as mentioned in my previous blog, it felt way too easy as compared to normal, especially given that the game employs vitachambers. But something else was more disappointing. I couldn't get spoiler tags to work, so the next paragraph is a Bioshock spoiler.

--- START SPOILER

In the first play through where I saved the Little Sisters, after the encounter with Andrew Ryan, Tenenbaum helps you. After harvesting the Little Sisters, I was expecting something entirely different to happen after that encounter. But no, she helps you anyway. I was hoping for a secondary sequence to rival the Big Daddy mission. Should you wish to respond to this, word carefully for those who haven't played it yet!

--- END SPOILER

As I mentioned was happening a little while ago, my parents and I sold our business. We are still busy at the moment as there is a handover period, so I'm over a week behind on reading Gamespot news and reviews (which I used to read daily at the shop) and haven't been commenting much on blogs. We let a lot of the regular customers know in advance that we were selling. One of the questions that was asked of us several times was "Who is taking over?" I'm not sure how you are supposed to respond to that. What information are they looking for exactly? My response generally was "A young couple, they seem very keen, they have done accounting/business courses at university" or something along those lines.

The people taking over are Chinese. Those who have read my previous blogs on this topic would probably know that I am not racist, but am intrigued by subconscious beliefs we may have, and that while it may not matter to me, it might matter to someone else. I refrained from saying that they were Chinese, because to me it didn't matter. Certain people, based on their behaviour or comments while being customers, I imagined probably did care. A few times, I caught my father saying "I have to be honest, they are Chinese". My dad is not racist, but the words 'I have to be honest' sound loaded with guilt. It makes it sound like you would prefer to keep it hidden, but really there is nothing to hide. I know my father wouldn't do it on purpose, I guess it was just his subconscious factoring in that it will matter to some people.

Of course, I ponder racial relations and the fine line between respecting racial differences and bringing attention to those differences unfairly. Some people don't give a crap. A customer asked me some questions about the sale, and asked me what the new owners name was. I told her his name. Her face dropped. "Can you please cancel my orders". Inside I was thinking "You have got to be joking?" but I feigned ignorance and asked why. She gave me a spiel about being able to pick up the weekly item in question on her way home from work, and she had been meaning to do it for a while. It sounded plausible, but saying his name (which I assume most people could determine it is of Asian origin only, and not a specific country) was definitely the catalyst. While that was the most drastic reaction, I've seen some other people less than enthused, to the point where I don't think they will be customers much longer.

He is smart though. He factored in that he was going to lose customers in his offering price (a price we were obviously still ok with). He shouldn't have to factor that in, but I guess racism, whether spoken or unspoken, is probably going to exist for the rest of my lifetime. You could make an argument against language barriers, and they would be valid. One person working doesn't speak very good English, and may have problems relating to customers. But one of them speaks good English, and we have had a few good conversations. Such as whether it would be harder for English speakers to learn Chinese, or for Chinese people to learn English. The way I understand it from out conversation, Chinese words are represented by symbols, which are more like pictures. If I remember correctly, English has the most words of any language. And words with one letter different can mean entirely different things. Because Chinese symbols are intricate and usually well drawn, he has trouble reading some peoples English writing, because we all write differently. We are used to reading other peoples handwriting, and only look for vague shapes that make up our alphabet. All rather interesting.

I also asked him if he ate dog. While culturally and legally we do not eat dogs or cats (in Australia, and I assume many other Western countries), I don't see any moral reason not to do so. What makes it so different from us farming pigs, sheep, and cows? We feed them, make them fat, kill them, and eat them. So why should we tell them they are not allowed to eat dogs in their country? I suppose you could say it is a domesticated animal, but I don't know if that actually means anything. It wasn't until I included someone else in the conversation that it came to my attention that we are the only country to eat the animal on our coat od arms, the kangaroo. I think a rare delicacy is also an emu egg, and the emu is also on our coat of arms. Interesting, eh?

I just so happened to buy a gaming mag (because the shop had no internet for a week before the sale), and it had an article about the growing market in China. I knew that China had a one child policy, but it has been in effect for 29 years. The article pointed out that no person in China who is under 29 years of age has a sibling. I had never looked at it that way, and that sounds both amazing and hard to comprehend. Apparently it is a big factor in MMO's in China; they've had no brothers or sisters to play with, so that becomes their social hub. Interesting things to think about.