While many people spend their retired lives arranging flowers, playing chess, nurturing pet birds or yelling at cable news television, this Taiwanese man is devoting his golden years to catching Pokémon.
Seventy-year old Chen San-yuan (陳三元) has achieved internet fame for an elaborate 11-phone setup that lets him play Pokémon Go for up to 20 hours. He reportedly spends TW$10,000 (US$324) a month on the gear and in-app purchases.
Chen first learned of the game from his grandson in 2016 and has been hooked ever since, claiming "there's a lot of fun [in this game]... I can connect with people [and] prevent Alzheimer's disease."
He first caught the world's attention when a photo of him appeared on Reddit, garnering more than 75,000 upvotes. A series of memes and news stories quickly followed. One report shares that he doesn't like to fight other trainers at gyms, but rather just collect rare Pokémon such as Snorlax, his favorite.
Chen has switched from a bike-mounted getup to a waist-mounted one and upgraded his system to 15 phones for an event in Taiwan's southern city of Tainan earlier this month.
Have a look at this TV feature on Chen San-yuan below:
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The News Lens has been authorized to republish this article from Saigoneer, an English-language digital platform covering urban development, history, food, culture and the arts in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) and throughout Vietnam. The original can be found here.
TNL Editor: David Green (@DavidPeterGreen)
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