| Thanks for the detailed and informative writeup!! I love learning about different experiences than my own, especially if they're specific to a time/world that doesn't really exist anymore. Know the past to better prepare for the future, etc. :) The link to CORECOM (and other countries' equivalents) was fascinating! I'd never heard of them, but assume literally everyone from eastern parts of Europe would instantly recognize them. I read through "Why?!" and somewhat wrapped my head around it -- necessity for hard foreign currency for trade purposes demanded it -- but it still seems incredibly destabilizing, if one were trying to run a communist country. At the end of the day, I guess economy >> politics, though. The "fake" glimpse / distortion point is also fascinating. I always thought of that as a Japanese thing in more modern times -- broad cultural awareness of very specific foreign things, but with a different meaning, that would be confusing to the actual origin country's citizens. And as you said, at the end of the day, a kid with a toy is a kid with a toy. :) Some things are universal. Every kid wants to have the popular/rare thing and show it off. And assuming there's food/shelter/family, whether it's a Coke can or the most luxurious Western consumer good doesn't really matter. I try and remind myself to me more childlike when it comes to happiness. Thanks again for sharing! And PS: Computer game magazines were the same for US kids. Until the late-90s, computers fast enough to run good games well were still pretty expensive, so most kids window shopped via game magazines. Or later, the demo CD-ROMs that occasionally came with them. |