0721 After the Rift Rivals

Kaohsiung last weekend belonged to “the legends.” The League of Legends Rift Rivals was held in the port city at southern Taiwan. 12 Teams from LCK representing Korea, LPL representing China, and LMS representing Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, gathered to fight for their regions’  pride. The competitions were so exciting that almost blown off the roof of the stadium. And the final winner were the LPL teams surprisingly crushing over the all-time favorite LCK teams with 3-1 in BO5 series.


However the story has not yet ended up, at least on Taiwanese media. On Monday, one of the major newspapers in Taiwan “中國時報” (China Times, “Tzhong1 Kuo2 Shi2 Pao4”) published an articles criticising the Taiwanese fans “insulting China teams” “showing no respect” “embarrassing the host. “ This criticism raised quite a lot outrage among the e-sports fans and the Independentists.


There are some background stories you should know. First, “中國時報,” though once the highly-rated media in Taiwan, now is owned by the China-favoured “旺中” (Wang4 Tzhong1) group, and becomes a typical pro-China propaganda in Taiwan. Second, even though the political reality, in e-sport world, the relationship between CN and TW-HK-MC scenes is in fact quite close. Such as Taiwan’s AHQ e-sport team has been partnered with China’s EDG for many years, and several fans-favorite shoutcasters in China are actually Taiwanese. Some fans may not agree, but the two scenes are just like cousins competing to each other.


I watched almost every game of Rift Rivals. Even though Kaohsiung is known as a pro-independent city in Taiwan, you still can see some fans waving LPL signs and hear the cheering up sound for the Chinese teams. After all, the Koreans in e-sports are the universal enemies  (lol). Of course when LMS teams showing up or winning games people’s gone crazy, however there was never lack of friendly appreciating from local fans for the Korean and Chinese teams. And the newspaper said Taiwan fans “impolite against Chinese”? I wonder if the journalist ever turn on the volume of the videos, or if his ears simply malfunctioned.


And, I have to say, that the Eastern-Asians are, as we say, “愛面子” people. One should always show his politeness and kindness to people, no matter what he actually think deeply in mind. Criticising a man “impolite” is more serious than criticising him “dishonest.” So such kind of report seems just trying to pick up fury by accusing Taiwanese (mostly) young people “impolite” to “our fellow Chinese.”


There are many famous traditional rivalries all over the world, like El Clasico, NY Yankees VS Boston Red Sox, or Milan Derby etc. Fans tend to shouting to each other, chanting and taunting all the pitch. Without these fans, the rivalries would have` not become classic. But in Eastern-Asian traditional fashions, it seems nothing worthy of than “harmony, “ no matter the “harmony” is made up by fakes and disguise. I don’t believe the so-called “sportship” is based on the fake “harmony” thing.
Back to the story. I want to argue for my “fellow Taiwanese” that we in fact treated our rivals fair and passionate. And I believe that it is the battle between fans on both sides which makes the competitions great. So why bother picking up fans “not polite?”   

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