I AM A FARMER

[sunny]

I am a “farmer” in Heilongjiang Province, China. This “farmer” is not the regular farmer who works on growing crops or raising animals. I am farming “gold” or items from online games and sell them to players around the globe, mostly to USA and Europe.
The time when I first started playing online games is June, 2005. It is the time when the World of Warcraft (WOW) was free tested by players within China. At that time, my friends and I are so interested, and we spent many hours of time everyday playing WOW. Soon we became addicted, we forgot to eat and sleep. We were immersed in the game’s fantasy world. Later my girlfriend left me, all because I was so addicted to the game, doing nothing but playing all day.
At the beginning of this year, I was hired as a farmer, basically to get the gold by killing beasts and sell them in the game or playing with accounts to higher levels. Though it is the same “playing” (should be called working) game, my feeling has changed, I am not addicted to it any more. Since I had many experience, it is easy for me to get the gold. My boss is very happy with my work. Also I am the only person in the farm with a college degree and knows some English. My boss gave me bonus from time to time. We sold those gold to many companies, like ige.com, mmogc.com … Sometimes the order is very urgent for power leveling, we have to work day and night.
Almost a year has passed since I became the farmer. The good thing is now I can earn some money. The bad thing is I feel very tired and empty inside. The work is repetitive and boring. My experience with the game goes from interested, attracted to addicted and now very bored and tired.
I don’t know what I am going to do next. My childhood dream was to have a life full of art. Now I have to work in the farm, to earn money for the living and for my parents. Maybe someday I can have my own company to earn a lot of money and then to fulfill my dream.