Dear Joss:
Thanks very much for your reply. I have Lau's book as well as the first
Syllabus by Li. I have Sloan's book on order, and I have his DVD. I also
have "Four Great Games" which treats Western chess, XiangQi, Shogi and Go.
I have on order "Games Ancient and Oriental and How to Play Them" and "The
Chess of China." Most of these books are inexpensive. The other Syllabus
books will cause me to save my pennies so that I can afford them.
Not long after I bought XieXie, http://cc-xiexie.com/
seemed to disappear
a
few days ago. I can't connect to the server. I have found Qianhong and
bought Chinese Chess Deluxe but haven't examined that yet.
"The Mystery of Chess Boxing" is available inexpensively in VHS format on
Amazon.
The wikipedia site for David H. Li doesn't have contact information,
unfortunately.
I find your comments about the "popularity" of XiangQi versus the "elite"
status of WeiQi or Western chess to be very interesting. Is XiangQi
considered a kind of "folk" entertainment that lacks the mystique of Go or
of Western chess? I wish that I could read more about that.
Thanks again for yoru time and attention.
"Joss Wright" <joss@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:c2t9s4x3ej.ln2@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Hi,
>
>> (I posted a similar note in rec.games.chinese-chess but received no
>> response.)
>
> I usually have rec.games.chinese-chess in my list of newsgroups, but
took
> it out only a few days ago. I must have missed your post there.
Apologies
> to rec.games.go people for the off-topic post. I have followed up to
> rec.games.chinese-chess as well, so any further replies should probably
go
> there.
>
> I actually played a game last night at Go club with some guests from
> Taiwan that I have staying, which is quite a coincidence.
>
>> 1) (Can't help)
>
>> 2) Can anyone provide me with a list of texts regarding Xiang Qi
>> that are available in English?
>
> I have all the xiangqi books in English that I've managed to find! There
> are certainly not many. Here are the books that I own:
>
> "Chinese Chess" by H.T. Lau (Tuttle)
> "First Syllabus on Xiangqi - Chinese Chess 1" by David H. Li (Premier)
> "Xiangqi Syllabus on Cannon - Chinese Chess 2" by David H. Li (Premier)
> "Xiangqi Syllabus on Elephant - Chinese Chess 3" by David H. Li
(Premier)
> "Xiangqi Syllabus on Pawn - Chinese Chess 4" by David H. Li (Premier)
> "Xiangqi Syllabus on Horse - Chinese Chess 5" by David H. Li (Premier)
>
> The "Syllabus on Xiangqi" series is quite comprehensive and contains
quite
> a few game records, as well as in-depth discussions of strategy and
> tactics. I haven't read them all cover-to-cover, though.
>
> Books, equipment and software for xiangqi can be bought from
> www.yutopian.com. They have quite a nice range, although they do tend to
> list things that are permanently out of stock.
>
>> 3) (Can't help.)
>
>> 4) Where should I go to learn of the history and culture of the
>> game? I imagine that there must be in Xiang Qi's history colorful
>> characters, famous games/tournaments, renowned strategic successes and
>> failures, etc., as there are in Western chess.
>
> The only advice that I can give here is that you'll probably need to
know
> Chinese! From what I've gathered by talking to some Chinese friends of
> mine, Xiangqi is something that nearly everyone knows how to play and is
> regarded as a fun game; it doesn't seem to have the same feeling of
> intellectual status and intimidation that chess in the West and weiqi in
> China have -- everyone can play xiangqi but "you have to be very clever"
> to play weiqi!. Of course, it's more popular with old people and, to an
> extent, younger children.
>
> As far as I am aware, there isn't quite such a culture of writing and
> publi****ng books about xiangqi as there is for weiqi or chess. I imagine
> that plenty of books exist, but I think there's a much smaller body of
> literature than for weiqi.
>
> H.J.R. Murray's "A History of Chess" has a brief section about xiangqi.
> Whilst some of the scholar****p in that book seems in retrospect to have
> been slightly dubious, it's certainly an interesting reference. Oddly
> enough, Murray decides that the "?" (xiang) in xiangqi refers to
"figure"
> rather than "elephant", which goes against everything that I've heard
from
> other sources. He then decides that "xiangqi" means "figure chess",
> referring to the fact that it was originally played with figures rather
> than flat counters. He uses this as evidence that it was derived from
the
> Indian game. This isn't necessarily wrong, but it's not very well
> sup****ted either. Murray makes a few assumptions about the origin of the
> game, and dismisses as "confused" some historical sources that
contradict
> his view. Good, Victorian scholar****p. :o)
>
>> 5) What are the best computer programs for Xiang Qi?
>
> I've heard of, but not used, Qianhong ("Light Red" -- a pun on "Deep
> Blue"). It's freeware (for windows) and seems to be an ongoing project.
> Possibly the best known is XieXie: http://cc-xiexie.com/.
There are also
> quite a few implementations for Palm/Windows Mobile. I have quite a good
> implementation on my Windows Mobile phone that is just called "Chinese
> Chess", and is published by ZingMagic.
>
>> 6) What are the best web sites (in English) for Xiang Qi?
>
> You can play online in realtime at www.clubxiangqi.com. I play there
> (very) occasionally. I play most of my games on www.brainking.com.
>
>> 7) Is Daniel H. Li, author of The Genealogy of Chess still alive?
>> How may he be contacted.
>
> I assume that you mean David H. Li. There's a wikipedia page about him
> here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Li.
He seems still to be
> alive! I imagine that you can find contact details by searching in
Google,
> although he's retired.
>
> I hope that this helps!
>
> Joss
>
> PS: On a slightly related note, if you're interested in Hong Kong
cinema,
> there's quite a fun martial arts film called "The Mystery of Chess
Boxing"
> that is based around xiangqi.
--
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