When I first looked at the cover of this book I though, “woah, this is going to be brutal,” but then I started to understand why this is so interesting and relevant to our study of Games and Play. Moskowitz goes into the history of Weiqi, how the game was made unpopular until the Tang…

This week’s reading about weiqi and Go did a far better job at introducing me to weiqi and more importantly its importance in East Asian countries. I especially liked the rather short segment from p. 42-47 that discussed weiqi as imagery for war and the Wuxia narration that was mentioned. I found it amazing how…

Moskowitz makes the argument that weiqi serves many purposes in China. It serves several religious agendas, it relates to both traditional and modern society, all while attributing to nationalist and globalist ideologies.  The most interesting manifestation of weiqi, is what Moskowitz called the “the world of weiqi” (p. 69).  While Moskowitz makes a very interesting argument…

Player’s choice is incredibly important to any game especially if you are looking for replay value. For me player’s choice is most prominent when I am playing a Fire Emblem game but the more I think about it player’s choice is present in nearly every game I play to some degree. Player’s choice isn’t only…

I found the Journal of American Oriental Society to be the most interesting. The way that the game of Wei-Chi was so often used to symbolize life issues was very indicative of the broad acceptance, and importance of the game in Chinese society. I also found it really interesting to learn that the game of…

This week’s reading were by far the most difficult we have had to read thus far. Wei Yao’s Disquisition on Boyi was the most difficult for me to understand however that was most likely because it, like all of the other reading, was talking about a culture that I haven’t ever really understood and the…

The game of Weiqi looked to be, from a play, culture and place in society point of view, a very similar game to chess. They are both games that take great skill and their players are prized for their intellect and abilities. They both had a high standing in courts and seats of power yet…

The aesthetic principle behind this photo, perhaps unintentionally, mirrors the function that Weiqi stones serve on their game board. Housed in larger lacquerware containers, they seem to be constructed to make the same noise they do when touching the finished boards with which they are played on. Art of Contest‘s section on Weiqi is interesting…

While I can’t say if I really enjoyed the reading this week it did bring up an interesting portion of games that is often overlooked, and definitely isn’t something we’ve really talked about in class, how games can be a powerful means of self expression. Though the creation of games is obviously an expressive action,…