KULOU.CSA's Trip to Korea, Written at WCGC 2000

An extra piece collected in ONE MORE WAY: The History Behind Chinese Esports, by kulou.csa, one of the four Chinese StarCraft players sent to the first WCGC. Translated from the Chinese original: KULOU.CSA韩国之旅 写于2000年WCGC

First published in the author's Zhihu column on November 18, 2016: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/23774762

This translation was reviewed against the Chinese original on August 3, 2026. If you spot a mistranslation, a wrong name, or a factual error, please open an issue or send a pull request.

By kulou.csa. Written in 2000, after competing at WCGC.

Early autumn. The four players of China's StarCraft squad were about to represent the country at WCGC, the tournament being held in South Korea.

On the 6th, at Beijing Capital Airport, we boarded a flight to Seoul. An hour and a half later we landed in South Korea.

The organising committee had sent someone to meet the Chinese delegation at the airport. They had thought of everything: the woman who received us spoke Chinese. After a round of small talk, we got onto a coach with World Cyber Game Challenge printed down the side.

On the way she told us that the organisers would be holding a grand reception that evening at Seoul's well known Shilla Hotel to welcome all the competing players, and then she enthusiastically set about teaching us Korean. We forgot one phrase as soon as we had learnt the next, but we were grateful for her warmth all the same.

When we reached the hotel, the organisers had taken the other players out to a park in Seoul, so for the moment only a few late arrivals were around. While we were wandering about, we saw several members of staff carrying large boards out of the hotel. A closer look showed they were the group draws for the tournament, so we rushed out after them and chased the boards until the staff finally stopped in front of a lorry.

We each checked our own group. Some of us were pleased and some less so, though everyone here had come through round after round of qualifiers to reach South Korea, so whoever you drew was going to be hard work.

Before long all the players were back at the hotel, and the whole place turned into a sea of red: everyone was wearing the red competition shirts the organising committee had handed out, printed with World Cyber Games. It was quite a sight.

These were the very best players, names known across battle.net, and now they were this close to us. It was hard not to feel a rush of excitement. We were lucky to be competing alongside them, and I remember thinking that I had to make the most of this rare chance and make the famous players from abroad aware of China.

The reception began that evening. A few performances had been laid on, singing and dancing and so forth, and the president of EA Asia gave a speech. In the end the reception closed to the sound of drums.

Afterwards the coaches took the players to our accommodation.

We were staying at a holiday resort, quiet and in very good condition. Our StarCraft squad was in the far corner of the third floor. The rooms had some furniture, a television, a telephone and a bathroom, and even kitchen equipment so you could cook for yourself. The heated ondol floor made it impossible to catch a chill. :)

There were also two computer rooms inside for players to train in. A shame there were not quite enough machines to go round, but standing to one side and watching the foreign players go at each other was not bad either.

Players from every country mixed together quickly. There was something of a language barrier, but we were all obsessive gamers and language could not stop us communicating. The foreign players were easy to talk to and gave themselves no airs, so we took the chance to play a few games against them.

Just as the games were getting going, the organisers told us to rest. Fair enough. We had gone straight from the plane to the reception and were a little tired, and with many days of competition still ahead there would be plenty of chances to play against the best. So we went back to our rooms to sleep, wanting tomorrow to come quickly.

I woke up with the sun already high. The speaker in the room was calling players down to assemble; we were leaving for the venue right away. We got ready in a hurry and boarded the coach. The venue was about forty five minutes from where we were staying, and we were soon there.

The tournament was being held at Everland, South Korea's largest amusement park. It had every kind of attraction, and players there for the competition could use them free of charge, so we could unwind properly in the park after the tension of a match.

Today was only the opening ceremony. No official matches.

First we were taken to an internet café inside Everland. It was extremely lavish, different from internet cafés back home in ways I cannot really put into words. It held close to 200 machines across two floors. Four machines stood in the centre, and every other machine in the place was arranged in rings around those four.

Korean professional players often came in to train and play practice matches, and those four central machines were reserved for them. On the wall beside them hung an enormous screen that carried the professionals' training games live, so everyone else could watch and learn from it. All of this I saw over the following days of the tournament.

After a while online it was time for lunch, taken at an Italian restaurant inside the park. Throughout the tournament, lunch and dinner were both eaten at restaurants in the park. Perhaps because most of the competitors came from Europe and North America, everything served was Western food, which we Chinese players found very hard to get used to. Most of the Chinese said they were not eating well.

After lunch we went to the venue where the matches themselves would be played, a theatre inside Everland with several hundred seats. Two large screens flanked the stage, carrying the best of the matches live for the audience.

The opening ceremony was to be held there that afternoon, so no machines had been set up on the stage. After some waiting, the WCGC opening ceremony began. The players were treated to a great deal of singing and dancing, the sort of thing you would certainly never get at a gaming event back home. The Korean side had invited the country's most famous male singer on stage to perform for the players, and had even brought in the Korean Minister of Culture to give an address.

A Minister of Culture turning up in person at a gaming event tells you that games hold an unusual position in South Korea.

After the ceremony we looked round several exhibition areas the organising committee had set up, and with that the day's programme was over. The coaches took everyone back to the resort. The moment we got off, the players charged at the computer rooms like tigers, terrified of arriving too late to grab a machine. By the time those of us on the StarCraft team had ambled over, the rooms were packed solid.

There was of course not a free machine to be had, so we could only stand and watch the best players go at it. The Korean players drew the most attention, with crowds of players standing behind them. My impression was that the Koreans' hands were frighteningly fast, close to lightning, while players from other countries were generally slower. No idea why. :)

With matches the next day, we watched a few games and then went to bed, a little nervous and also looking forward to it. This was, after all, the first time any of us had had the chance to play at an international event on this scale.

On October 8, WCGC finally got the official competition under way.

The schedule worked like this. StarCraft and Quake III on one day, FIFA 2000 and Age of Empires II the next, the four games alternating day by day until the tournament ended. That left plenty of time for the matches. A player would not normally have more than three games in a day, which gave everyone time to rest and get themselves into the right condition, and kept the standard of play high. Whether the matches are worth watching does matter, after all.

The first day was StarCraft and Quake, so the eight lads on Age of Empires and FIFA did not set off with us and stayed at the resort to train, while the eight of us in StarCraft and Quake were ready to go.

At eleven we boarded the coach with our team leader acep. The players sharing our coach were the Korean team, and they chatted and laughed the whole way, while our Chinese contingent sat there looking serious and preoccupied. Probably because it was our first competition of this kind and we were a bit nervous.

We ate first when we got to the venue inside Everland, nothing more to say about that. :) The afternoon matches were about to begin. More than thirty machines had been set up on the theatre stage, and players were given twenty minutes to test them, which was our first chance to see what the competition machines were like.

They were very good machines, all Pentium III 800 with 256MB of memory, running Quake III at around 130 frames per second. Players in the other games did not ask much of the hardware, of course; what mattered was that the keyboard and mouse worked well, and most players had brought their own mouse anyway. So nobody really had complaints about the machines. I did not have a mouse of my own and used the one provided at the venue, which felt fine.

The organisers were friendly and answered every question a player had. They had brought in staff who spoke English and Chinese to keep things running at the venue, so that a language barrier would not get in the way of the matches. During the test period a woman speaking fairly fluent Chinese came round to ask whether we had any problems.

The official matches followed the test period. A USB driver problem on HeNRY_HO's machine left some of his keys unresponsive, and he lost a game each to the players from Taiwan and France. He was knocked out, which was a shame.

PBY.csa and ID_eat each won one and lost one and went through to the last 32. I won both my games and also went through to the last 32.

On the Quake side, ID_CHJ had strong opponents throughout his group and did not get past the first round, but the other three players all came through to the last 32 comfortably.

A decent set of results, all in all.

Back at the resort that evening, with no StarCraft matches on the 9th, we played until the computer rooms closed. They shut at midnight, though, which was a little early. :)

We spent the whole of the 9th training at the resort. Word came through that evening that every one of our Age of Empires and FIFA players had got through the first round. A different game, but we were happy for them.

Over the matches from the 10th to the 13th, though, our players fell one after another. By the 13th every one of them had been knocked out. Nobody reached the last four or won prize money.

This was, after all, our first time out at an international tournament, and results like these are not bad. What I very much regret is that I got no further than the last 12 in StarCraft and could not do better. I apologise to everyone.

Because players were being knocked out all the time, the organisers put on sightseeing trips to Seoul. From the 10th to the 14th there were three places to choose from each day, among them a folk customs district and an electronics market.

I had matches right up to the 12th and could not go, and after I was knocked out I was in no mood to go sightseeing. So I never went once. The other players all went, and every one of them came back with a big bag of shopping.

On the evening of the 11th the organisers put on a party with a buffet, including Korean barbecue. I had heard for a long time that Korean barbecue tasted superb, and here at last was the real thing. It really was very good. After eating, all the players celebrated on the square at the resort, and players from many countries got up on stage and threw themselves into some wild dancing. It was hilarious. A thoroughly enjoyable evening.

By the 14th we had all been eliminated, so the whole StarCraft team and acep went for a swim at the pool next to Everland. Relaxing helped us take the defeats a little more lightly, settle ourselves and get ready for the challenges to come.

The 14th and the 15th were the days of the finals, and they were the Korean players' days. Across the four games decided over those two days, Korean players celebrated three victories. They lost across the board in Quake, and took the titles in all three of the other games.

FIFA was the most extreme of them: the Koreans took all four of the top places. In StarCraft they took three of the top four, and in Age of Empires two Koreans finished in the top four. The gap between professional and amateur was there in front of our eyes.

By the evening of the 15th every event had finished. The award ceremony followed. Several prominent figures hung gold, silver and bronze medals round the winners' necks in each game and presented them with oversized cheques and flowers. After the awards for each game, the flag of the champion's country appeared on the big screen and the national anthem was played.

It felt much like the medal ceremonies at the Olympics that had just finished. No wonder the World Cyber Game Challenge is known outside the scene as the Olympics of gaming.

Watching the elated players on the podium, it was hard not to feel a pang. How good it would be to have a Chinese player standing up there.

All we can do is hope that at the next WCGC the Chinese players will give everyone a surprise. The ceremony ended quickly, and the organisers held a farewell party on one of Everland's squares, another buffet, Korean barbecue again, all of it grilled on the spot by Korean chefs. The temperature was very low that night, but the players ate with relish.

Once everyone had eaten and drunk their fill, there was Korean dancing to watch. In the end everybody crowded onto the stage and danced to disco.

By then there was no tournament between the players and no competition, only friendship and enjoyment. People used the last of the time to swap contact details and take photographs together. I found I_love.star and GoRuSh and had my picture taken with them, a keepsake with the champion and the runner up.

Before we went back to the resort, dazzling fireworks went up over Everland. Once we were back, plenty of players gathered in the rooms and drank through the night, unable to say everything they felt about parting.

Ten days in South Korea gave me a full sense of how passionate Koreans are about games, and of how they understand them.

For instance, a large screen had been installed in the central part of Everland for this tournament, and once play began it ran advertisements for the competition and the like without a break, so most visitors to the park would see it. A stage had been built as well, where a team of hostesses spent all day telling visitors about WCGC and handing out leaflets.

When the matches were on in Everland's theatre, the seats below were often full of visitors who were interested in games and had come to watch. For the finals there was not an empty seat in the house. While we were in South Korea we could often find StarCraft matches broadcast live on television, and I once saw a married couple in their thirties playing a 2v2.

The age range of players in South Korea is enormous. Nobody thinks it strange for someone in their forties or fifties to play games, whereas in China you rarely see a player over thirty. There are also a great many female players in South Korea, and nearly all the StarCraft matches I watched on television were women's matches. In China, I am afraid female players are still looked at like rare animals.

When will spring finally come for Chinese players?

WCGC is over, but we will always remember South Korea, and always remember the days we spent there.