EARLY GO IN WESTERN EUROPE — PART 2Guoru Ding and Franco Pratesi sente88@yahoo.com

franco.pratesi@alice.it

Some new information about weiqi activity in Great Britain was recorded in thefourth diary of Zhang De-Yi; we have already encountered him in a previousarticle in the BGJ as the interpreter for the diplomatic mission sent to Englandin 1876 by the Qing government.

Zhang Meets Falkener

We have kept our account of thisdiary, separate from the first article,because it contains useful documentson Edward Falkener.

In the Oxford Dictionary of NationalBiography we read: “In 1892, at theage of 78, Falkener published ‘GamesAncient and Oriental and How to PlayThem’, a pioneering (and somewhatmisleading) study of board gameswith suggested reconstructions, fourof which were manufactured andadvertised for sale in the book.” Thisis the only information available to usabout Falkener as a writer on boardgames. It is fortunate that this rarebook has been reprinted by Doverseveral times since 1961, allowing itsspread among interested players.

As far as weiqi or Go is concerned, auseful detail can be read in Falkener’sbook on games. After listing theliterary sources for his chapter on’The Game of Enclosing’ (see page 5),and in particular directly after thereferences to Hyde and Giles, he adds:”Playing with Chinese and Japanesegentlemen 1865, 1872, 1889.” We haveyet to find any new details on thesethree occurrences, but Zhang De-Yidescribes a fourth one, occurring in1877, by the way, the same year of thepioneering article published by Gilesin Temple Bar.

Further information about Falkenercan be found rather easily, becausehe was a renowned architect andarchaeologist. He was born in Londonin 1814; as an architect, he became amember of the architectural institutesof Berlin and Rome and in 1895 waselected honorary fellow of the RoyalInstitute of British Architects.

On the other hand, his archaeologicalactivity is mainly connected with along tour through most countriesof Europe and the Middle-East thathe performed from 1842 to 1849.Everywhere he made careful studiesof the architectural remains and evenexcavated a house at Pompeii in1847. He also had the opportunityto build a rich collection of Arabmetalwork, pottery, and arms, whichunfortunately was destroyed in a firein 1858. In 1877, the year of interesthere, he had lived for two years with

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his family at Glan-y-mor, St Clears,Carmarthenshire, Wales, where hedied in 1896.In the same year, 1877, the ChineseEmbassy in UK started its activity inLondon, with Sir Samuel HallidayMacartney (1833-1906) workingas Secretary, and thus in a leadingposition there. On the occasion ofthe visit of Chinese diplomats thatwe have seen in the previous article,Falkener wrote to Halliday Macartneyinviting anyone in the Embassy whoknew how to play weiqi to attenda dinner banquet at 5 pm on July4, 1877. As a consequence, Zhangand Falkener met there, and on twofurther occasions in the followingweeks, as recorded in the diary. Inparticular, Zhang wrote the followingcomment on these visits in his diary:”He was good at all kind of boardgames but had little knowledge aboutweiqi, thus he made such a plan.”

On July 4, 1877 they first met atClothworkers Hall in Mincing Lane, inthe old town. Of course, Mincing Lanewas somewhat different at the timecompared to nowadays as most old

buildings were destroyed in the Blitzof 1940-41, including ClothworkersHall. In 1958 it was rebuilt in the sameplace in the City of London and canstill be found to be among the mostpopular livery companies. “Today theClothworkers are more involved withcharitable work. The ClothworkersHall is available for hire and cancater for up to 224 people dining, andreceptions for up to 300 people.”1

Zhang - together with anotherChinese, Li Xiang-Pu - arrived theretwo hours late because earlier he hadto attend a tea party; however, inthe morning he had sent Falkener amessage to inform him of this delay.There were 26 people at the banquet,and the food was delicious. Afterdinner they had some cherry drink(mixed with liquor) from a foot-tallsilver container called a ‘loving cup’:starting from the first seat, everyonehad to directly drink from it, thento pass it to the next one to drink, todenote friendship. Falkener showedall the rooms to Zhang and Li, andthey smoked, and drank tea andcoffee. It was later than 11 pm whenthe two Chinese came back to theEmbassy.Falkener invited Zhang and Li againto the Clothworkers Hall on July25, 1877. On that day there was thehandover ceremony of the committeeof an association in which Falkenerwas an influential member. Overall,186 people took part in the celebrationdinner, including 14 foreign guests.Zhang was invited to give a speech asa representative of the foreign guests.A week later, on August 1, 1877,Falkener visited Zhang at the ChineseEmbassy, at 11 am. He brought acomplete Go set with him. The setapparently came from Japan: the

1www.allinlondon.co.uk/directory/1339/565.php

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stones, less than 200 pieces, weresmall; the board was about 7 cm thickand provided with the traditional fourlegs. Notwithstanding the presence ofthe four legs, it was a more ordinarymodel than the two prestigious gamesets described in Falkener’s book, seebelow.Zhang wrote a useful additionalcomment: ”He knew a little aboutthe opening stage of the game, andhe said that he had learned it frombooks.” In the same diary, there is onefurther small piece of informationrelated to weiqi. Zhang visitedthe British Museum to check theircollection of more than 10,000 Chinesebooks and he found books of ”Qin,Qi, Shu, and Hua”, namely of thefour performing arts: playing musicalinstruments, weiqi, calligraphy, andbrush painting, respectively.That is all the information aboutFalkener and weiqi in the fourthZhang diary, but it allows someimportant deductions. If nowhereelse, Falkener had the opportunityto read some Chinese weiqi books inthe British museum. He apparentlyhad Japanese connections too,since he owned (or borrowed fromsomewhere) a Japanese Go set.When Falkener published his book onboard games, some fifteen years later,he wrote that ”the Japanese pile theirgames one upon another as ornamentsin their rooms. I have two piles ofthese games, the ornamentation ofwhich is very similar. The lowerboard is that of Go, the Game ofEnclosing;...”. Thus, not only did he

own a couple of complete series ofJapanese board games, but he knewhow much these sets were treasured intheir native country.

It is regrettable that Falkener nevermet the second Chinese ambassador,Zeng Ji-Ze, and did not furtherput into practice his knowledge ofweiqi with expert Chinese playersin England. He thus missed theopportunity to learn the game wellenough, something that he apparentlyintended to achieve. He could haveintroduced the game to Europeanplayers before the known pioneeringcontribution of Oskar Korschelt inJapan, 1880-81.

In any case, he may have played anessential role within the unknownfellowship of native players, fromwhich Horace Cheshire emergedlater on. Another comment may beuseful, concerning his dependenceon Giles. It is true that his bookdepends on Giles’ article too, whichwas certainly published fifteen yearsearlier, precisely at the time of theevents described here; however,Falkener’s research on weiqi wasalready active in Great Britain beforethe publication of Giles’ text.

The manuscripts of Zhang’s diaries were beautifully written. In 1951, Zhang’sdescendants donated these manuscripts to the Beijing Library, and they werephoto-lithographically reprinted in the late 1990s. Thanks to an unknowncontributor, the Chinese text is now accessible to everyone as a PDF file on theInternet.

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