Ping, Ping －ピッピッ－

My son will be nine years old next month.  He said to my wife recently, “Today I was given the cold shoulder by my friends.” 

“Why were they ignoring you?” she asked. 

“Well,” he said.  “They asked me what computer games I played.  And all I could say was that I played a computer version of shogi (Japanese chess), and did English on line practice drills.” 

No wonder his friends left him out of their conversations about Splattoon and Mindcraft. 

Until now I haven’t let my son play computer games.  We don’t even have a television at home. 

There have been good things arising from this.  My son loves reading books.  To my mind, that is a more meaningful and useful hobby than watching tv or killing virtual monsters. 

But having said that, I played computer games myself when I was young.  I got particularly into a game called “Civilization” in which you have to build cities, discover new technologies faster than your opponents, and ultimately either conquer the world or be the first civilization to colonise space.  If I survived a childhood with computer games, then my son ought to be able to also. 

So with the school summer holidays starting from this afternoon, I have decided to compromise.  We have downloaded a pc game for my son to play.  I don’t want him to jump straight in with the most modern, 3D, fun and addictive game available.  So I have decided to go retro.  We have downloaded a pc version of “Pong”.  Pong was first released in 1972 by Atari.  It is one of the simplest games imaginable.  It is essentially a computerized version of table tennis (or ping pong), with the player able to move a line up and down one side of the screen to intercept a little block representing a ball, and thus direct it back across the screen. 

Am I being cruelly strict?  If he doesn’t get too addicted then perhaps we can slowly build up through Space Invaders and Pac-Man.  By the end of the school holidays, my son might have advanced all the way to the computer games of 1980.  Or perhaps he will decide computer games are overrated and go back to his books.

 

Vocabulary:

to give someone the cold shoulder – to deliberately ignore someone or treat them in an unfriendly way

[eg., Since I forgot her birthday, she’s been giving me the cold shoulder.]