The World of Weiqi

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 about how superiority in wieqi is used to boost nationalist sentiments in China, a caveat to that argument is that there is a tremendous amount of respect attributed to opponents.  He sites an article describing Japan’s fall from weiqi prominence, stating that “it laments the loss of a worthy adversary, perhaps in some sense even a father figure, to the world of weiqi” (p.69). While China and Japan have had rocky relations throughout their long histories, weiqi transcends international politics and fosters respect and admiration, based not on national ties but on skill.  Moskovitz puts it nicely when he says, “it can … be a free space to transcend those borders in the shared appreciation of, and membership in, an increasingly international community of Weiqi players in East Asia” (p.69).  The world of weiqi is its own community, dominated by Asian societies.  It creates a connection, a shared culture that is otherwise difficult to distinguish. Two other aspects that can help to contribute to this shared culture, is hand conversation and brain studies. While neither are directly paralleled to the idea of the weiqi community and its cohesion, I feel that they are important factors.  Moskowitz quotes Hong Feng a weiqi instructor when he describes hand converstation, Feng states, “‘When two people play Weiqi they don’t speak.  Their conversation is on the board” (p. 106).  Thus weiqi could be considered a universal language, similar to chess, in that anybody who understands the rules can play together without worrying about spoken misconceptions.  They can communicate, in a deep way through their game play and strategy.  Feng relates hand conversation to the polite respect players feel toward one another while playing the game, thus relating back to how the wieqi community has nationless characteristics.  As for the brain research, studies have shown that “weiqi increases right-brain dominance” (p.88).  Moskowitz goes on to say that, “Weiqi players rely heavily on spatial recognition and the memory of certain patterns as well as the possibility that there are minor physiological changes when learning the game at a young age” (p.88). While this connection may seem strange, it gives the weiqi community a unifying physical trait can be attributed to the group as a whole regardless of their respective birth-nations.  In other words, weiqi players have similar brain anatomies that either result from or directly contributes to the way they play weiqi.  The weiqi community thus champions a shared anatomy, language, and culture, it is in a small way its very own nation built entirely around the ancient game of weiqi.

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