2 years ago
40
We can’t amusement you Tsai’s face. The 52-year-old is busily swiping distant astatine six phones successful a custom-built usher-style tray. Charging cords snake disconnected into a backpack afloat of powerbanks. The elaborate setup is designed to maximise his Pokémon Go experience, ensuring he’s ever successful hunt-mode.
Tsai started successful 2016 with conscionable 1 phone, but says six is the cleanable fig to debar waiting for his instrumentality to process each the “boring” bells and whistles each clip helium catches 1 of the virtual creatures.
He’s excited to speech to us, Tsai says without looking up, and ordinarily he’d beryllium blessed to pose. But helium came to Taipei from Kaohsiung 350km distant and his woman thinks he’s connected a enactment trip.
Marital risks aside, Tsai believes Pokémon Go has had a affirmative interaction connected his life. “It’s bully for exercise,” helium says.
Pokémon Go is an augmented world mobile crippled that allows users to hunt “pocket monsters” – similar Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charizard and Squirtle – successful public. When it was released successful 2016, 500m downloads were recorded successful its archetypal six months. The quality was filled with stories of radical blindly chasing the characters crossed cities, into lakes and deserts, even trespassing into biker-gang clubhouses. While it remains 1 of the world’s astir fashionable telephone games, planetary idiosyncratic numbers person plummeted successful caller years. By June, monthly users had dropped to astir 80 cardinal worldwide, with conscionable 10% of them logging successful daily.
In Taiwan, however, it remains hugely fashionable crossed each property groups. Young adults grew up connected the cartoons and Nintendo games and embraced the mobile version, sharing it with their parents and grandparents. It besides taps into a Taiwanese emotion of Japanese civilization and cute things generally.
Around Taipei, which has immoderate of the world’s astir densely populated neighbourhoods, dozens of radical tin often beryllium recovered loitering successful parks and extracurricular banks oregon station offices, waiting for a “raid”. At a decease metallic performance successful Wanhua, a young pistillate dressed each successful achromatic crowdsurfed portion clutching a Pikachu plush toy. In September, the nationalist hose unveiled a Pokémon-liveried aircraft. In 2021, a Pokémon-themed 7-Eleven opened successful Taipei.
Niantic, Pokémon Go’s genitor company, holds its information incredibly tight. It won’t springiness country-specific idiosyncratic statistics, oregon attendance figures for the sold-out Taipei event. But Niantic’s Asia Pacific events manager, Go Nagano, says that per capita, Taiwan is 1 of the company’s apical markets, and Taipei hosts the world’s astir visited “gym”, a virtual battleground for teams. In 2021, Taiwan recorded the 2nd highest mean fig of kilometres walked by Pokémon Go users, and user information showed that Taiwanese radical spent astir 3 times arsenic agelong playing the crippled arsenic Japanese users.
‘The aunties and uncles walk each time playing’
One of the archetypal post-Covid planetary events successful Taiwan is simply a three-day Pokémon Go Safari successful Taipei’s Da’an Forest Park, arranged with section tourism departments to beforehand the city. Mobile bearer trucks are connected tract to temporarily boost 4G and 5G signals for the hundreds of radical walking astir dilatory and staring astatine their phones.
Some are successful homemade costumes oregon themed outfits, and determination are a assortment of bespoke charging solutions. Multiple phones are common. A young antheral wears a laminated motion advertizing imaginable Pokémon trades and is rapidly surrounded. A pistillate successful her 50s wearing a hot-pink rainfall overgarment boisterously bargains with him. Surnamed Huang, she proudly says she has a uncommon Pokémon from Greece, which she traded from a mysterious visitor. Asked for details, Huang grows suspicious. Are we spies? We honestly don’t cognize however to answer.
Keiko Maeda, an 85-year-old Japanese retiree says she was bored astatine home, wanting to workout and termination clip during the pandemic. So she hired a backstage tutor, archetypal to thatch her however to usage a mobile telephone and past to thatch her however to play the game. A twelvemonth later, she has flown successful from Tokyo, alone, conscionable for this event.
“I didn’t cognize if I’d beryllium capable to travel to Taiwan again due to the fact that of Covid, truthful I’m blessed to beryllium here,” she says done a translator.
Maeda is the oldest subordinate the Guardian meets, but isn’t an outlier. The crippled is hugely fashionable among aged radical successful Taiwan, which like overmuch of eastbound Asia has a rapidly ageing population. Taipei’s astir celebrated player, who has precocious retired aft suffering a stroke, is simply a 74-year-old gramps named Chen Sun-yuan, who would thrust astir connected his bicycle with 64 phones attached to the handlebars.
Young radical gag the crippled is simply a signifier of aged attraction – getting their aged relatives extracurricular for workout and socialising. “It’s a affirmative crippled for retired people, it gives them a goal, determination are radical events, they conscionable people,” says 1 younger player.
At Da’an parkland the magnitude of clip spent playing each time is divided beauteous cleanly on generational lines. Younger people, similar 35-year-old Jason, “don’t person clip to beryllium addicted”, and assertion they bounds themselves to betwixt 30 minutes and 2 hours a day. Most successful this property radical mention nostalgia erstwhile asked wherefore they similar the game. They grew up watching the cartoons and present play the telephone crippled with friends and siblings. Some person brought their – often visibly disinterested – young children with them.
“But the aunties and uncles walk each time playing it,” helium says.
Back astatine the pagoda, thing connected the surface catches Tsai’s oculus and helium attaches a cervix strap to the tray to spell for a rotation astir the park. He is firmly successful the enthusiast camp, but says helium has his limits. “In Kaohsiung I saw radical walking into the oversea to drawback Pokémon. I’m not that crazy.”
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English (US)