Before I was 8 years old, no one in my village had heard anything about Xiangqi. The villagers did play a sort of game using muddy ploughing fields as chessboard, stones as chess pieces, even then this primitive native game attracted a big crowd whenever it was played.
When I was 8 years old, suddenly the whole village was much attracted to the game of Xiangqi, it seemed that everyone was playing it, old and young.
One evening, Hu Yong, a young helping worker of my family asked my father whether he knew how to play Xiangqi, on hearing this, my father was tensed, and quite emotioned, as if drunk, it took him a moment to answer a single word: yes. Later I realized that my father was a good player, when he was young, he had a job working as a county committee's secretary, and when he established his reputation in the Xiangqi circles, a player from the greater county committee contacted father and arranged to play a game.
That same evening, all the leading members of the county committee having heard the news came along to witness the battle, at the same time to have a chance of meeting the visitor, leader of the greater county committe.
Before the match, a county committe leader told my father, saying surely you will not win the game. The meaning of this was that hinting to my father, you must not win it. Maybe my father did not take what was said seriously, anyway the outcome of the match was my father won the game, and quite a convincing win, in such a way that the greater county committee leader felt very uneasy, as if he had lost his clothes in public. The humiliated leader patted my father's shoulder, said to the host, comrade Xiao Huang is all right, worthy of nurturing. Since then my father's career went downhill, later downgraded to local comittee, and afterward, father resigned his post and retired, went back to his native village.
In the village there was another good player, an old colleague of my father. One day both of them played a game in the back garden, this quickly turned out to be a big event and attracted such an enormous crowd, after the game, everybody rushed forward surrounding both players just like they were two great movie stars, and I was trying to deal with the exciting situation, just as if I was my father's business agent or manager !
Since then, I was infatuated with Xiangqi, at the age of 12, I reached the strength that I seldom met equal opponent in the village. I played more often with my father, people in the village said I got the true style of my father, but I did not think I had it, my father used to play the Rook and Cannon well, with powerful attack in sweeping and wide open style, while I was swift and adventurous in playing my Knights. Naturally, I was still not equal to my father, I had yet to obtain a better position from him. I felt sometimes as if my arms were cut or tied, for my father never allowed me to take back a move.
At the age of 16, I left home to get my living, I travelled and worked in different places. One evening, my boss called me and we played a game in the office. While I was holding a chess piece, hovering it over the chessboard, the memory of my father playing a game with the committee leader came back to my mind, I hesitated slightly, and the boss won. He was very happy, he took a deep breath, laughed heartily. Yes, he had beaten a good player. Once again he had proved to himself his wisdom had succeeded in seeking the feeling of youth.
But for me, this way of playing the game was most unsatisfactory. I longed for the old days of carefree playing with my father. I keenly wanted to return back to my native village and sit down and play games with him.
I had left my village, in a blink of time, already 7 years. During this period, my father became older, bending a little, however, his attitude in life of never say die was still with him. When I arrived back at the village station, my father came to meet me, snatching my luggage, he said, son, have you made any progress in chess? I said, yes. Father laughed and said, I would not be scared by your progress, I am going to teach you a lesson and capture all your pieces on the chessboard.
Deep in my heart, I wanted to give my father a hard fighting game, however, I did not want to destroy my father's confidence and joy of the game, how can I ?
I lost my first game. Father said I was not concentrating enough on my game.
I lost again in my second game. Father took a puff of the smoke, and after a while, he said, son, your chess had progressed a lot. I said, no, I had not progressed as you may think, the old hand remained a better player than the new hand. Father said sombrely, my son, you have changed, you have learned to lie, you have learned to flatter, courting the world's favours. Finally, father sighed and said something with deep signification, he said, when you can win against someone, yet you lost it to the same one, this is disrespectful to yourself, this is toying with others, like a cat toying with a mouse. However, nowadays people like to be toyed, they do not like to be respected.
Since that day, father had not played another game with me again. We even avoided mentioning the word 'Xiangqi'. In our home, the chess set remained in its place, unmoved, covered with a layer of dust, a very thin layer of dust.
~ a XIANGQI EN BLOG translation ~
Source: Guangdong Xiangqi Website
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