Why is it acceptable to obsess about football and wear your favourite player’s shirt, but wrong in the head to have all the Star Trek DVDs and think that pointy ears are cool? Bah, we say. Humbug, we add. As far as Time Out is concerned, geek isn’t a dirty word. And we’re not alone. On Wednesday 25, the sixth annual Geek Pride Day will be held across the world. To celebrate, here are our favourite local geeky activities.
The dice men
Computers might be synonymous with gaming these days, but once upon a time it was pencils and dice, not pixels and mice, that ruled gamers’ hearts. Tabletop role-playing games (RPGs), most notably the revolutionary Dungeons & Dragons, put players in charge of a character in a series of immersive, limitless stories in which battles and events are ruled by the roll of a die.
Those glory days live on in Beijing thanks to the city[‘s D&D Café, now in its second year. For a minimum spend of 25RMB on food and drink, gamers can play Dungeons & Dragons as well as more popular RPGs including Vampire: The Masquerade and Cthulhu, plus card game Magic: The Gathering. Most games are held in English, with some in Chinese. Newbies are welcome.
D&D Café C-0157, Chaowai SOHO, 6B Chaoyangmenwai Dajie, Chaoyang district (5869 3867). Email dndcafe@gmail.com to join a game. 朝阳区朝阳门外大街乙6号朝外SOHO C-0157
Nerds of a feather
Do you spend hours of your life looking into the murky smog of Beijing’s skies in the hope of seeing a Hodgson’s frogmouth? If so, the Beijing Bird Watching Society is for you. This friendly group of passionate bird oglers conducts research trips and recreational jollies to scenic wilderness spots both in and outside the city. This month, they plan to flock to Dongzhai in Henan province in search of blue-throated bee-eaters and Asian paradise-flycatchers, and every weekend there are downtown birding trips suitable for newcomers and families. As the society is an NGO, members are expected to fund their trips themselves and pay a yearly donation of at least 100RMB.
Contact Li Ming on minglee@ibcas.ac.cn for more details, or check out www.cbw.org.cn.
Dress to impress
Some people might think that dressing up as a video game hero, complete with bright blue hair, spandex costume and five-foot sword, is stupidly over the top. They would be wrong: it is awesomely over the top. Better still, it’s happening right on your doorstep.
Cosplay (the name is an oh-so- Japanese mangling of ‘costume’ and ‘play’) sees hundreds of thousands of people worldwide emulating their favourite characters from video games, films and comics. Although there are no official cosplaying groups in Beijing as of yet, a quick glance at the China section of the
www.cosplay.com forum suggests that there are plenty of English-speaking fans out there looking for friends.
Game for a laugh
Bored stupid? Get board clever at Sequoia Café’s monthly board gaming shindig. Fans of competitive board games will descend to push pieces in bouts of Monopoly, Scrabble and Sorry! as well as geekier fare such as Teutonic trading game Settlers of Catan. Bringing friends is encouraged, but the regulars are open to playing against new blood too.
Sequoia Café Unit 1-1, Building 7, Jianguomenwai Diplomatic Compound Unit, Chaoyang district (6501 5503). 朝阳区建外公寓7楼1单元11号
Killer entertainment
Killer – known in the US as Mafia and to its Chinese fans as Sha Ren You Xi (杀人游戏) – is a genuine sensation here. A souped-up, eight-player version of the old party favourite ‘Wink Murder’, it sees players hiding behind eyeless masks – except for the secret killers, who then ‘murder’ folks and try to convince the ‘police’ that someone else is guilty. China has embraced the game so enthusiastically that Killer den X Club operates a 24/7 operation, renting out rooms, masks and other paraphernalia to avid fans around the clock. There’s even a leaderboard for truly competitive mass murderers.
X Club 21 Liangmaqiao Lu (inside the drive-in movie park), Chaoyang district (5166 0006 ext 859;
www.xclub.com.cn). Open 24 hours. 朝阳区亮马桥路21号(枫花园汽车电影园内）
Dork Knights - Beijing's geek heroes
Name: Greg Schroeder
Age: 28
Passion: Magic: The Gathering
'I think that "geek" has entered the mainstream - between video games and comic-book movies, a lot of people are geeks now.'
Name: Elizabeth Licata
Age: 29
Passion: Cosplay
'Performances here are unlike anything I've ever seen - they're so choreographed! I'd like to gather together Beijing cosplayers - they can contact me on costume.cannon@gmail.com.'
Name: Xu Jing
Age: 31
Passion: Killer
'Killer is such fun to play and a great way to make friends. What I like is the fact it really doesn't matter who you are, anybody can join in.'