Neostalgia Table

Woven into the fabric of memory, nostalgia is the simultaneous sweetness and the bitterness of wanting to return to another place or time. It is a longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed. Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, but also a romance with one's own fantasy.

NEOstalgia is a movement that comes from nostalgia but wants to propose a new one. It deals with the inability of homecoming and tries to activate a new way of homecoming. The movement aims to find new homes for the home-missing.

Homecoming Object 1: Fortune Cookie
      made in U.S.A by Asian American
      labeled as Chinese Snack
      longs for a home of whom are displaced (diaspora) and another home of whom fantasise the displacement (exotism)

Homecoming Object 2: Chinese Checker
      originated in Germany
      name given by an American Company
      labeled as Chinese game
      longs for a home of whom fantasise the displacement (exotism)

Once I ordered Chocomel aside my meal at Eazie, the notorious asian fast food restaurant around the corner. A fortune cookie was served aside the cup of Chocomel. This snack perfectly fit in as a snack to a sweet hot dutch drink, also as an auratic snack that explains the attempt of some cultural fantasy: “Right, you are eating supposably Chinese, and we serve you what supposably are Chinese.”
      I do not remember having any through my life in China. Nevertheless, at that time I was so convinced that I received a Chinese snack, while looking at the Chinese characters and some dragon illustration on the golden-looking package.
      This snack is trying to please everyone — it has the fortune told in English, Dutch, French and Spanish on the little paper. British, American, Dutch, French and Spanish and people all around the world gets their lucky freebee, indulging themselves in the golden crispy oriental dream.
      There is someone left out whom Fortune Cookies forgot to please — the Chinese. The Chinese person is left there confused: he doesn’t even know about the most “Chinese” thing. He does not read a single word from inside, either.
      When I needed to introduce a game in a class, I chose a chess game that I used to play a lot with my grandma. It is called Hop Chess in Chinese. I had to google the English name for it. It turned out as a surprise — it has the name “Chinese checkers” in English. I did not know about it at all. Everyone seemed convinced in my class. “You were playing it in China. It originates in China. Yes.”
      Yes, that is why we would never call it Chinese checkers. It is like we calling pasta “Italian noodle” and baguette “French stick”. But the Italian or French would never do so.
      But I was very confused that I had never heard about its Chinese origin.
      The fortune cookie and the Chinese checker want to come home. Me too. I want to come home with them.

The movement is directed by two organisations:
WFFF (World Fusion Food Foundry) and
TGGG (Total Guide to Geography Gameplay).

WFFF proposes and performs a new way of serving Fortune Cookie — Unfolded Truth. TGGG proposes a new design of Chinese Checker — Check-in Checker.

KexinHao · And When The Marbles Knocked

Checker checkes in 3 times:
家
Home
Heim
and is never arriving China.

Equipment
The Chinese checkers board is in the shape of a hexagon. It is constructed by dots and lines. Dots are where the pegs stay. Lines are the paths of the pegs’ move. The game board is divided into three parts. Each part is called “home” in Chinese, English and German respectively. They are three different homes of the player.

家
我的第一个家在北京，我出生和长大的地方。小时候我经常跟我奶奶下跳棋，但我从来不知道跳棋在有些国家叫中国棋。但是中国并不是跳棋的起源地，中国是跳棋游戏公司假想的家。2016年，我离开北京去德国生活。我不经常回北京但是经常想念北京，更想念我跟奶奶玩儿跳棋的日子。那个是我永远也回不去的家。

Player
This is a two-player game played by one player. This player has two counterparts. Each one aims to go from one home to another.

Heim
Mein zweites Heim befindet sich in Potsdam, wo ich ein Jahr in einem Studentenhaus auf einem Hügel namens Babelsberg verbracht habe. Deutschland gilt als einer der Orte, an denen der chinesische Checker seinen Ursprung hat. Ich kann mich nicht erinnern, dass jemand in Potsdam gespielt hat.

Objective
The objective of the game is to be the first to move all the pegs into the other home. In a two-player-played-by-one game, each counterparts of the player races their pegs to occupy the homes where the opponent starts.

Home
My third home is Den Haag. It is my English-speaking home. I moved here after Potsdam. I have a complex relationship with the three homes of mine. I keep wanting to go from one to another. As soon as I arrive the other, I cannot wait to leave for another. And I am never able to tell which one the best is. My life is like a little peg racing on the Chinese checker board, always towards the other home, always arriving but always leaving.

Rules

Rule 1. Players take turns to move a single peg of their own colour.

Rule 2. Move: Players can move a peg to an adjacent empty dot, but not further, in any of the six directions.

Rule 3: Hop: Players can hop over other pegs. Each hop must be over an adjacent peg of any colour and to an empty dot directly beyond it, in any of the six directions. Hops can be multiple in one go.

Rule 4: Fast pace: a peg may hop over a non-adjacent piece. A hop consists of jumping over a distant piece (friendly or enemy) to a symmetrical position on the opposite side, in the same line of direction.

Rule 5: Pegs are never removed from the board. Pegs never go outside the boarders.

and when the marbles knocked,
all of them, massively, rolling on the game board,
we would switch the colours and
the sunny afternoon would restart.
And it would past
as slow as how the pegs lagged
and as slow as how our clock moved when you ever gazed at it.
Until it stopped
after 36 years of running.
The one, the quartz clock dad bought in 1984 with his first salary.
I used to beg it to just make it hurry a little bit.
It actually had been running like an athlete, grandma,
Its paces were fast enough to fool us,
It raced towards an end nobody would know,
wanting to outpace.
And now it decided to take a break I see.

But it was all too late grandma.
It had done too many rounds without knowing
that it was exhausted.

So had we.
So had the marbles.

As they knocked,
all of them, massively, rolling on the game board,
we would switch the colours and
the sunny afternoon would restart.