1. Ah Cheng 阿城 (1949- ) Pen name of Zhong Acheng 鍾阿城 The man: Born into a family (of 5 children) in the elite circle prior to 1956 His father, the critic, became a rightist in 1957 and was sent to the countryside for the labor camp His mother resorted to desperate measure for survival His father’s position was restored in the early 1960s Left for the countryside in 1968 Returned to Beijing in 1979 Published stories from 1984 Settled in California, US

2. Major works “The King of Chess” 棋王 (1984) “The King of Children” 孩子王 (1985) “The King of Trees” 樹王 (1985) Three Kings: Three Stories from Today’s China (1990)

3. “The King of Chess” What kind of a person is the Chess Fanatic? He seems rather odd among the educated youth. He is very reverent about eating (C. P. 377/40). “.... When it comes to food my needs are relatively practical” (ibid., 39). What kind of story does he like to hear? ? Does it sound like he is from a high-brow family background? The game of chess has been considered an elite recreation but he learns the art of playing chess from a wastepaper collector.

4. “The King of Chess” (continued) What does he learn from the wastepaper collector? What is old according to the wastepaper collector? “Isn’t collecting waste paper as I do everyday collecting old stuff? But when I take it home and sort it out, and sell it to support myself, isn’t it new” (ibid., 45)?  The old can become new in due course. Is soft weak according to his thought system? “Softness isn’t weakness -- it is taking in, gathering in, holding in. ‘To hold and assimilate is to bring our opponent within your strategy. This strategy is up to you to create; you must do all by dong nothing. To do nothing is the Way, and it is also the invariant principles of chess” (ibid., 45-6). Doing nothing means one would not stop the operation of the chess.

5. “The King of Chess” (continued) How can one play well in the game of chess? “You must create for yourself a strategy for each game. Once you have both the nature of chess and a strategy there is nothing you can’t do” (ibid., 46). How can one create one’s strategy? “The secret in creating a strategy lies in the moment.... You must take care not to sustain a fatal loss, you must adapt your tactics to circumstances” (ibid., 46). What is the reason to create a strategy? “[T]here is no future without a strategy” (ibid., 46). ? Is future determined by fate according to this system? Future will come in the direction of what we are constructing now.

6. “The King of Chess” (continued) What is the relation between living and playing chess? “To live for the sake of chess is to nourish your essential being, but to live for the sake of earning a living is to damage your essential being.... this precept had ruined his life” (ibid., 47). What is the grand strategy of life? “[T]here are only so many pieces in chess and the chess board is only so big, the principle is necessarily always the same and only the strategies are different” (ibid., 47). Can the Red Guard erase the book in the heart of the chess fanatic? What does it mean to you?

7. “The King of Chess” (continued) What is the narrator’s complaint of the life on the Farm? Are bread and butter enough to keep individuals happy? What does the Chess Fanatic think of the life there? How does he get into the habit of playing chess in his mind? What is his mother’s advice? Does this episode shed light on why the Chess Fanatic is so attentive to the basics of life? Is this notion specific to the Chess Fanatic?

8. “The King of Chess” (continued) What does the Chess Fanatic refuse to enter the tournament? (ibid. 81) What is the reason that the Chess Fanatic asks the narrator to be prepared before the game? (ibid., 86) What is the implication of the Chess King’s words? “Ma, today I understand. One still needs something, which can be considered living” (The missing sentence on page 93).

9. “The King of Chess” (continued) “My home was gone, my family had been destroyed, and with cropped hair I carried a mattock day in and day out: but in this itself was contained a true human life, and once I had come to realize this, I knew what good fortune was, what happiness was. Food and clothing are basic, and since the human race has existed they have been its daily preoccupation. But to limited by them is, in the end, not a truly human existence” (93).