From: ghira mistral co uk Date: 18 aug 2004 Subject: Re: Spreading Shogi in the West (was: The myth of the "kanji barrier") Your free subscription is supported by today's sponsor: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Get a Great Credit Card for You Today=20 You can find a credit card to fit your credit needs.=20=20 All types of credit cards -- 0% APRs, Rewards, & Bad Credit. http://click.topica.com/= caacvgua2i6YsbnuqMaa/411Web ------------------------------------------------------------------- > The problem is that everybody likes to play and few people > like to man a stand to teach and spread Shogi. I like running stands to spread things. Indeed, I probably prefer it. I did it for three days about two weeks ago, will be doing it for three days starting on Friday. Another 5 days in Pisa in November this year and then again in March=20 next year. Also, Cambridge a couple of days a year. "National Science Week" events seem to work ok, but the two things this month are both Anime festivals where I've offered to run a Go and Shogi table. I don't know how useful this will turn out to be. We shall see. I'm taking Rush Hour and Lunar Lockout as well since they attract victims and people to watch the victims.=20 Some of the victims and spectators eventually ask about Go and Shogi. Quite a few people express the concern that learning to distingish the pieces will be hard, but I tell them that in the 18 or so years I've been doing this I've never had anyone have real problems after about 2 games. Generally speaking if people have a problem with Shogi (or XiangQi) it's that it seems to have more rules than, say, Awari or Go. Some people have claimed to me that Go and XiangQi should have pieces in squares rather than on points, and that Shogi should use a chequered board. These seem to be minority views, and frankly seem a bit silly. I suspect most of my=20 "clients" probably don't play chess either - the few who do ask to learn the rules to Shogi and XQ=20 probably are already chess players. I think if I ran a pure Go or pure Shogi table I'd have a much harder time. Are there national science weeks in countries other than Italy and the UK? People could offer to run games and puzzles tables in maths or CS departments, and happen to take Shogi as one of the games. My own experience is that Awari, Rush Hour and Lunar Lockout are most likely to pull punters in initially, but if you run a stand all week you'll get regular customers who will ask about the other stuff, and once you've got a game of Shogi going on, passers-by are much more likely to ask about it. It works much better if at least one of the players is clearly a punter rather than a demonstrator .. e.g. the students at Pisa are much more likely to ask what we're doing if they can see that it's a game with someone they know rather than between two imported lunatics. --=20 Adam Atkinson ghira mistral co uk --------------------------------------------- This message was sent using Mistral Webmail. http://www.mistral.net Your free subscription is supported by today's sponsor: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Amazing Diet Patch The fastest - Easiest way to lose weight! Try it now FREE! http://click.topica.com/= caacvgta2i6YsbnuqMaf/MyDietPatches ------------------------------------------------------------------- --^---------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to: = shogi-l shogi net EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a2i6Ys.= bnuqMa.= c2hvZ2kt Or send an email to: shogi-unsubscribe topica com For Topica's complete suite of email marketing solutions visit: http://www.topica.com/?p=3DTEXFOOTER --^----------------------------------------------------------------