Apropos of the link today to the book on chess, many people in Europe and the Americas are not aware that there are two other incarnations of chess: Chinese Chess aka Elephant Chess, and Japanese Chess aka Shogi.
Learning them pays at least 3 dividends:
1. Like European chess, they are fun to play.
2. Learning culture. The rules and pace of play reflect the nature of the culture from which they come.
Shogi is all about close, frontal assault, with the surprise "drop" move. In Shogi, one slowly builds to a furious battle where many pieces are exchanged: but that is not the end. The battle can begin again with captured pieces. Shogi "feels" very Japanese.
Chinese Chess is a game of strict limits to piece movement and pieces quite foreign to European chess, such as the Cannon. The checkmate is arrived at by careful arrangement within the Palace and without. Like executing a contract with a Chinese company, a game of Chinese Chess is a protracted affair that can end with one party in an extremely compromising position due to a technicality. Elephant chess "feels" very Chinese.
3. Make friends. When I was in college, and again as I have travelled on business, I have found that a chessboard is a sure cure for homesickness and can make friends of Chinese and Japanese. Whip out a board at an airport, or at an early morning meeting, and you will immediately attract both challengers and onlookers.
Once I pulled out my Chinese Chess game at the first break in an all-day meeting while in China. I don't know any Chinese, but I was immediately engrossed in a game with a Chinese client who spoke only Chinese, and the onlookers all cheered us on. He won, of course, but that interaction went a long way in building friendships. And it was a heck of a lot of fun.
