象棋

On my trip I hung out with Geoff in Berkeley. Berkeley ends up closing up pretty early when school is not in session so we spent the evening playing Chinese chess. Chinese chess is a strategy game with many similarities to western chess and may be just as complex. It is pretty quick to learn but takes a long time to master and we played a few games of it over beers.

The next day we ended up going to SF for lunch and to see some sights. I had never seen Chinatown so I wanted to check it out. It was pretty cool to check out Chinatown with Geoff since he is fluent in Cantonese and could communicate with people in the shops if we were looking for things. While wandering around we came by a open park area and saw groups of old Chinese men huddled around small tables playing and observing Chinese chess! It was great since we had just played and had refreshed the rules so we could watch them play and understand the game (although I was unable to understand the discussion/debate over strategies which they were yelling at each other.) It was really cool, and so I decided a great souvenir would be to buy a Chinese chess set. I found one for about $3 which was pretty cool.

We ended up walking back to the park, sitting down at a table and playing a game together. At first I was worried that I would be offending them as I would be seen as a scruffy white guy mocking their past time. After just a few moves a few men started to stand around and watching our game. First they were giving me weird looks and seemed confused or maybe just curious about what we were doing, I think a few chuckled a bit. It was really embarrassing because neither of us are good at the game but a bunch of guys who watch the game played all day long were certainly aware of our lack of strategy. After a while they began to give me tips by pointing at squares on the board or moving my pieces for me, while of course giving me instructions in Chinese. It was frustrating as I did not even know how to say thank you for the tips they gave me. At some point they were basically just playing for me and debating with each other over the merits of various moves. It was amazing, but all very surreal. Was not at all what we were planing to do in SF but I cant imagine anything better.

The game of Chinese chess or 象棋 (xiàngqí) is extremely popular in China. The scene in chinatown of groups of men playing it in public is apparently seen in cities all over china. While playing it I decided it would be a unique and fun project to program, and something that is within my abilities. So I have decided to create a Chinese chess Facebook application. There already are successful western chess applications so I have something to model it after. I currently do not see an Chinese chess application out there and who knows maybe Facebook will one day become popular in china and I will get a ton of users. I think it will be a great learning experience for me to actually write code with users other than myself, and will be great to put on a resume if it ever became popular!