Intelligence benefiting Games
4 min readSeven-piece Puzzle
A seven-piece puzzle, otherwise known as a seven-piece picture, is a famous jigsaw, which enjoys high popularity all over the world and gains the title of Tang Pictures.A seven-piece puzzle is invented out of inspiration from yanji of the Tang Dynasty,a kind of table usedin ancient times with a distinguished feature of easy assembling and separation according to the number of guests.
The seven-piece puzzle made considerable progress during the Yuan and Ming Dynasties.
During the period from the end of Ming Dynasty and the beginning of Qing Dynasty,a unit of seven pieces or sets made of wooden chips or cardboard was popularly known as seven-piece card. In the reign of Jiaqing of the Qing Dynasty, retired Scholar self nicknamed Lay Buddhist wrote a book Seven-piece Picture based on his comprehensive study and extensive practice of this game. Thenceforth, the structure and design of seven-piece puzzle were fixed.
The seven-piece puzzle is easy to solve even for a child. However, it is very interesting to play with. Even adults get fascinated with it. In the last one hundred years, special books on the game have come out in the western countries.
Riddle Guessing
Riddle guessing may be accounted as the most ancient intelligence-benefiting game. In the ancient books of the Zhou and Qin Dynasties, it is recorded that riddles were named yinyu(enigma) that employed such techniques as metaphor, analogy and implication to hide what riddles refer to. In the Han Dynasty, yinyu developed towards two directions: one is characterized by portrayal and the other is mainly about the meaning and form of words, with the former being popular among folks and the latter being the main way of intelligence racing among men of letters.
What’s more, in the Song Dynasty, there appeared professional artists who were specialized in making riddles, who were called commercial riddle makers. They put up stands at such public places of entrainment as wazi, attracting people to participate in riddle guessing.
He who guessed rightly got the prize; he who guessed wrongly paid money. Meanwhile, this game was combined with the lantern show on the Lantern Festival. Therefore, lantern riddles pasted on the lanterns for amusement and enjoyment were produced.
Untying a Chain of Rings
Untying a chain of rings is a traditional intellectual game. The rules go like this: first, one ties a number of rings together into a chain and then he who unties them is the winner. The chain of rings has various structures: five-ringed, seven-ringed, nine-ringed, eleven-ringed and even thirteen-ringed. Among them, the nine-ringed is the most popular. This game made its first appearance in the Warring States Period. Thenceforth, it remained prevalent through dynasties. Su Shi,a famous poet in the Song Dynasty, writes:”It is easy to untie a chain of rings as if with the help of a god’s hands.”This indirectly reflects the complexity and difficulty of untying a chain of rings. In the reign of Emperor Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty, Karl Dane, an Italian mathematician came to China. He could not admire more the Chinese chain of rings.
Practising Guqin, Qi, Shu, and Hua
Qin,a seven stringed-plucked instrument in some ways similar to the zither, originally wascalled qin or seven stringed qin. Since the Tang and Song Dynasties, it was called”guqin”which was used as a musical instrument for offering sacrifices, entertainments and performance.
Qi specially refers to weiqi with a history over four thousand years. In the Spring and Autumn period and Warring States period, weiqi was beginning to take shape.A weiqi board has 19 vertically and horizontally parallel lines,361 crosses,180 black pieces and 180 white ones.
Shu(calligraphy) refers to the writing in brush. It resorts to the change of lines to express the style of writing and the mood of the writer.
Hua means painting in brush, ink and painting coloring on specially made Xuan paper,a high quality paper made in Xuancheng in Anhui Province, or on silk. As for its skill and technique, there are gongbi(traditional Chinese realistic painting characterized by fine brushand close attention to details), yibi(focus on the mood instead of details), sketching, boneless technique(painting without outline but with forms achieved by washes of ink and color), etc.
Qin, qi, shu and hua not only act as entertainments for traditional scholars, but also exert immeasurable influence on the character of traditional scholars and creation of the Chinese cultural heritage. Enjoying guqin, weiqi, calligraphy and painting are regarded as literary pursuits by scholars. He Yanzhi of the Tang Dynasty records in his Lanting Account:”One is elegant, erudite and good at writing and obtains the essence of qin, qi, shu, and hua.”
