Next Generation - Land of the Eternal Internet Cafe: South Korea

Next Generation - Land of the Eternal Internet Cafe: Page 2


Land of the Eternal Internet Cafe
by Nick Rumas


Thursday, 18 August 2005
In Korea, the Internet cafe or 'PC bahng' is king. Our man in Seoul was persuaded to enter a bizarre new world of gaming…
At three o’clock in the morning on any given night, the streets around Seoul’s prestigious Korea University are mostly quiet—a few drunk students struggling to find their way home are all that’s left of the crowds present a few hours earlier. Take a stroll into one of the area’s countless 24-hour Internet cafes, though, and you’ll find a stark contrast to the calm outside.

Upon entrance, you’re greeted by rows upon rows of computers, tons of second hand smoke, and lots of noise. The crude, harsh fluorescent lighting above combined with the dreary atmosphere almost makes you feel as if you’ve entered some kind of sweatshop. Fortunately, a sweet college girl at the front desk greets you with a numbered card, and makes you feel welcome.

Following the number on your card, you find your designated computer station, a bit small and crammed between a couple guys too lost in their games to clear the way for you. The patrons here are mostly students of the nearby university, living in dorms, student homes, or hostels in the area. They spent their high school years studying thirteen to fifteen hours a day, slaving away to get into KU, one of Korea’s top three schools, and luckily university studies aren’t nearly as intense as what came before. The tough part was getting in—it’s mostly smooth sailing from here on out, and that means it’s time to play.

Place to vegetate

Here in Korea, the Internet café is referred to as the PC 'bahng', or 'room'. Once the lifestyle has been experienced, it feels altogether more fitting to refer to them with this less elegant term—they are, more or less, places to vegetate. Going in and observing behavior for the first time can be quite a bizarre experience.

In the past, most patrons came to play Warcraft, Starcraft, Lineage, or Counter Strike, but recently a wider variety of Korean RPGs and online games, including the free Mario Kart clone, Kart Rider, have been enjoying the greatest popularity. Eyes are absolutely glued to the screen, the cigarette and ashtray becoming an extension of the player’s body itself. In most cases, the patron is so immersed in the onscreen goings on that they don’t even notice if the person sitting next to them tries to get their attention.

The more social situation occurs when a group of friends, upon leaving the soju bar, comes to play together, sitting in a row, but even then communication dwindles to a bare minimum, drowned out by the sounds of explosions, revving engines and dying enemies.

Fortunately, the harsh fluorescent lighting and drab interior mentioned above is not always the case. Most districts feature a variety of locations, many newer Internet cafes are designed to make one feel as if they're in some sort of futuristic spacecraft, with an indirect blue glow being the only source of light. These more atmospheric locations usually feature more room to breathe and enhanced privacy, while any difference in price is minimal. While such locations provide a far more enjoyable experience to the casual patron, capacity is smaller than the sweatshop variety mentioned at the outset, resulting in decreased competition and a less dynamic gaming venue all around. The hardcore crowd gladly forfeits the elevated atmosphere of the latter for the intense competition of the former.

The majority of patrons are male, those in their twenties making up roughly 43% of users, teens 36%, those in their thirties 18%, and only 3% over forty years of age. Regardless of location or clientele, the situation largely remains the same—from the city to the countryside, good areas or bad, Koreans love their PC rooms. In a central business district like Gwanghwamun, for example, the Internet cafe becomes a haven for stressed out office workers seeking to wind down after an exhausting day of work. Children are no exception, either, as there are kid-friendly locations near just about every elementary school around, where the aforementioned Kart Rider is all the rage nowadays.

One of the great things about the whole PC room phenomenon is how cheap it is - generally one thousand won, about ninety US cents, per hour. This, in addition to their abundance, enables easy high-speed access to the Internet for all, including travelers and those without home computers.

Safety

PC rooms are safe, and usually feature cheap access to printers, scanners, and web cams. Some also have limited food service, focusing on the dietary staple of Korean college students—ramen noodles. Unlike mild, sweet Japanese ramen, the Korean variety will set your mouth ablaze, and it’s consumed all night long at the PC room. Tip for travelers: if you have a weak Western stomach, don’t try that. I did. But only once.

The number of Internet cafes in Korea peaked in 2001 at nearly 23,000. Since then, numbers have fallen a bit, but not necessarily because of waning popularity. The main reason seems to be that recent popular games, especially RPGs, demand an expensive, state-of-the-art system, and as a result the small, lower end PC rooms have had to make a tough decision: upgrade or call it a day. As the Korean economy has been quite unstable for the last few years, many have had to close their doors. Interestingly, the average number of PCs per café has grown significantly since 2001 to over fifty, indicating that larger, higher end PC rooms are becoming the norm.

Reports of cases in which unhealthy use of Internet cafes has led to some awful consequences make headlines every now and then. Just recently, news hit that a couple left their infant at home sleeping while they went to the local PC room to play World of Warcraft for hours on end. While they were gone, they evidently lost track of time, and their baby died. Some time back, the news story of the week was of a young man who spent eighty straight hours playing, then went to the bathroom and collapsed dead on the floor.

Fortunately, though, such news isn’t too common. The 'PC bahng' is a fascinating part of modern Korean culture, and looks to remain so. Should you ever take a trip here, make sure and stop in. You’ll be glad you did.