Dance Dance Robotlution

Sometimes, in China, people get bored.

Look, I hate to be the one to burst your tiny ethnocentric, Sinopheliac bubble, but after the first three months of requisite ooh-ing and ah-ing at all the Cultureâ„¢, you’ve had your fill of berry-faced beggar children and all you want is a cup of hot chocolate and some Battlestar Galactica, please.

All Chinese temples look the same. There are tiled roofs, which are mostly yellow, with grass growing out of them, which is mostly green. There are old stones with moss on them, which are all sort of square. Occasionally, if you’re lucky, there are monks. In identical robes, with kindred haircuts. Sorry boys, I brake for wii access.

Cure for Sinophilia is Living in China, studies show.

For many expats, everyday entertainment comes in the form of online flash games such as Flight of the Hamsters, which is twice as cool as magic-wielding ghost pirates wearing ninja costumes eating brains. Or, in my case, in the form of Robot Dance Battle, which is exactly like robots wearing Pepsi dresses doing the Macarena.

Case file: Saturday night, 10PM. No on in the house has slept for 37 hours. Kyle hears a low, excited whooping from the vicinity of the computer. Upon investigation, our poor protagonist discovers yours truly locked in mortal robot combat, bump-grinding to the death, hip-hopping for her mechanical life.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“SHHH! Must… wiggle… metal… hips. Must… drink… Pepsi!”

There was a lot of speculation in business circles as to why it was that Pepsi lost the Cola Wars. Analysts the world over pushed their glasses higher up on their noses and obsessed over Pepsi’s new corporate colors, the effectiveness of the Coke “Classic” campaign, and the unexpected failure of Pepsi’s general invitation for consumers to “Drink Pepsi, Get Stuff”. But the real answer can be found on a flash games server based out of Scottsdale, Arizona.

As I frantically click tiny music-note icons to spur my pink robot into ever-intensifying convulsions, I wonder which brilliant marketing mind of the Pepsi generation decided that transsexual discobots pelvic-thrusting in a radtastic 3D gladiatorial boogie arena would surely solidify Pepsi as the beverage of choice in the collective consumer consciousness.

Rumor has it Coke intends to assert its authority over the Chinese market with such retaliatory releases as Coketer Strike: Condition Fizz, and an online RPG wherein a party of three animated Coke bottles must quest for the cure to deadly PepSARS.

As I make plans to visit the Lama Temple for the 10 millionth time, I thank my luckybots that I live in China, where global advertising slogans are little more to my quasi-illiterate eyes than a jumble of characters on the side of a bus.