• Go

The culture from Chang An was widely spread to Korea and Japan. There is one thing can highly represent the clothing, architecture and the language — that is Go. Go is the Japanese pronunciation of “棋”, which means the chess. It was taken back to Japan from Chang An in 735 AD by one of the Japanese missions to Imperial China, Kibi MaKibi (吉備真備). Go was immediately popular in Japanese royalty. A lot of Go boards were made in that period and became the treasure of Japanese museum.

The Go player are teaching Emperor of Japan.

 

The best Go player will hold the title of “The most famous person” (名人); therefore, during the competition of the title, Go player will wear the traditional formal clothes to express their respect to the Go and also the tradition. When the game starts, players must bow to each other to show the respect for each other. The title competition is held in a special room called deep and mysterious room (幽玄之間). It means Go player should keep calm and focusing on the game. Also, we can clearly see that the title and the room name are written by traditional Chinese characters, which is a continuation of Chang An culture.

The etiquette and beginning of the Go competition

Go title competition

The room of deep and mysterious

 

Go is the game that comparing the territory area to decide who is the winner. The Go board has 19 multiple 19 crossovers, which represent the whole the stars and the whole universe space. Players use the black and white stone to alternate put the chess on the board. The black and white represent the yin and yang to be balanced. Everything in the universe is also changing.

During the game, there are some general advice or experience. They are called the ten advice of the Go (圍棋十訣), which represent the traditional Chinese Confucious philosophy. For instance, one rule says: choose the bigger benefit (捨小就大). During the go game, there will be a lot of choices. In the picture below, the white stone player should choose that the next step will put on the point A or B, which decides the white stones in the red or blue circle can be alive. During the daily life, most time when we need to make decisions, the experience of Go can provide inspirations to us to make a better choice.

The the ten advice of the Go (圍棋十訣)