Living xiangqi turns people into pieces on a giant board. Explore its history, Vietnam's cờ người festivals, and how to stage a safe game of your own.
Living xiangqi is xiangqi played with people as the pieces. Thirty-two players in costume take their places on the points of a giant board marked out on the ground, and two players call the moves from the edge. Known in Chinese as 人棋 (rén qí) or 真人象棋, it turns up at festivals, school events and promotional shows.
It works because xiangqi pieces are already labels rather than sculptures. A person in a red tabard with 炮 on the chest is instantly a cannon. Add a board, a caller and some rules about who walks where, and you have a show that teaches the game to anyone watching. Below we look at the history, the living tradition in Vietnam, and how to run a game yourself.
Old stories, and how far to trust them
Living xiangqi comes with colourful stories, and it pays to hold them loosely. One legend says the Tang emperor Xuanzong played with palace women as pieces to amuse his consort Yang Guifei. Historians point out that whatever game he played, it could not have been xiangqi as we know it, since the modern game took shape centuries later.
The Ming dynasty offers a slightly firmer footing. Zhang Ru'an's history of Chinese chess cites an account of Yan Shifan, son of the powerful minister Yan Song, drawing a board on a carpet and playing his wife with thirty-two young women as the pieces. Even that reaches us through later writings, so treat it as a well-known anecdote rather than a documented event. The same history records that the celebrated master Xie Xiaxun (谢侠逊) used living games to raise funds during a trip to Southeast Asia in 1938.
Cờ người: Vietnam's festival tradition
The strongest living tradition is in Vietnam, where human xiangqi is called cờ người, literally people chess. It is a folk game of village and temple festivals, especially in the Red River Delta of the north and above all around Tết, the Lunar New Year. The board is marked out on a wide open space, often the yard of a communal house or a pagoda, and the crowd is expected to watch quietly so the players can think.
Northern games follow some well-established conventions. Traditionally, sixteen young men form the red side and sixteen young women the other side, whose colour is blue or green. Each piece's name is printed on the front and back of the costume, or carried on a wooden placard with a handle. The general wears a mandarin's hat and court robes and is shaded by a parasol, advisors wear winged hats, and soldiers dress as foot soldiers in conical hats. The two players stand on the field itself and direct their pieces, with a drummer beside them to keep things moving. A captured piece steps off the board and the capturing piece takes its place.
In the south a more theatrical style has grown up. The pieces carry martial-arts weapons, and when one piece captures another, the two step into the river space and act out a fight to the sound of drums. Troupes performing this version have been invited to festivals across southern and central Vietnam.
Living xiangqi today
In China and Taiwan, living xiangqi is now used mostly to promote the game. Strong players and masters often take the calling roles, moves are announced over a loudspeaker, and the pieces march to their new points. Captures are sometimes played out as mock combat. In 2014 a performance in Yilan County, Taiwan, combined a living game with traditional opera and martial arts, and school groups have staged games of their own to get pupils interested in the board.
Cousins in other chess traditions
Xiangqi is not the only game played this way. The Italian town of Marostica has staged a costumed living game of Western chess every two years, in the second week of September, since 1923, commemorating a legendary match from 1454. In Japan, the city of Tendō holds a human shogi event, Ningen Shōgi, at its festival each April. The appeal is the same everywhere: people enjoy seeing a game of the mind acted out in the open air.
Planning your own game
Running a living xiangqi game is well within reach of a school, club or community group. You need a large flat space, 32 people to be pieces, two players and a small crew: a caller with a microphone, a referee who knows the rules, and a couple of marshals to guide pieces to the right points. It also helps to have someone keeping the game on an ordinary board at the side, so any mix-up can be fixed quickly.
Decide early whether the game will be live or scripted. A live game between two good players is exciting but unpredictable, and it can easily run past an hour. A scripted game, where you replay a short famous game or a composed finish that has been rehearsed, fits neatly into a festival programme and lets you plan the captures in advance. For a first event, scripted is the safer choice.
Marking out the board
A xiangqi board has nine files and ten ranks, which gives eight gaps across and nine along, counting the river as one. Multiply by your spacing to get the size. At 1.5 metres between points the playing area is 12 by 13.5 metres; at 2 metres it is 16 by 18 metres. Leave extra room around the edge for walkways, the players and the audience. Wider spacing looks grander, but pieces walk further and the caller needs a louder voice.
Use line paint, chalk, tape or pegged rope, depending on the surface and what the site allows. Put a clear marker, such as a cross or a flat disc, on every one of the 90 points so each piece knows exactly where to stand. Draw both palaces with their diagonals, and write 楚河 and 漢界 in large characters across the river. Big file numbers along each edge, 1 to 9 from each player's right, make it much easier for pieces to find their destination when a move is called.
Costumes and signs
Keep costumes simple and readable. Two colours of tabard or sports bib, one for each side, with the piece's character large on the front and back, will do the job. For a mixed audience, add the English name underneath. Hats, sashes and props add a lot of charm: a parasol or tall hat for the generals, fans or scrolls for the advisors, and placards on poles, as in the Vietnamese tradition, for younger pieces who might forget which piece they are. Avoid long hems and anything that covers the face or makes it hard to see the ground.
Running the match
The players need a raised spot or a stage where they can see the whole board. Announce each move twice, first in notation and then in plain words, for example: Red, cannon two to five, the cannon moves to the centre. A marshal can walk with the piece if needed. Give the pieces something to do on a capture. A bow and an exit, a short choreographed duel with foam props, or a small dance all work. Captured pieces should go to a clearly marked area at the side, where they can sit down and keep watching.
Living games are brilliant for teaching. When a person stands next to a horse, everyone can see why the horse's leg is blocked. When a cannon needs a screen to capture, the crowd can count the people between the cannon and its target. Children who have played an elephant rarely forget that it cannot cross the river.
Safety and logistics
Pieces may spend a long time on the board, so give them stools or mats and let them sit between moves. Plan for shade, water and sunscreen on hot days, warm layers on cold ones, and an indoor fallback, such as a sports hall with a taped board, if rain is likely. Check the ground for holes and slippery patches. Keep every prop soft and blunt, and never use real weapons, even for show. For school events, follow your usual supervision and photo-consent rules, and make sure there are roles for anyone who cannot stand for long, such as caller, drummer, scorer or commentator. Name a first-aid contact before you start.
A living game tends to leave people wanting to play for real. Point them to XiangqiPlay, where a free account lets them take on the computer at any of its eight levels (Easy to God) and work through a library of 5,000 mate puzzles.
XiangqiPlay Team
XiangqiPlay newsroom
