The Chess club at SMA YPK in Bontang, Indonesia in East Kalimantan, or Borneo, is underway and hopefully will be starting this or next week.
Thursday of last week, however, I had about a dozen students over my house to play chess and to teach some of them how to play XiangQi, or Chinese chess.
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Chess Lessons at My House
Some students already know how to play. In the picture above I’m playing a great game against one of the students while teaching the others and making general points on strategy and rules of thumb.
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Two Students Playing
In SMA YPK in Bontang I have fortunately not the same assumptions about chess and gender as other school. It is much more like the Kakemer Resource Center where girls were just as eager to learn as the boys. Among those that already play, however, the vast majority are boys. When the club officially starts we’ll see how many join.
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Chess and XiangQi (Chinese Chess)
Some of the students already knew Western Chess, but none of them were familiar with XiangQi or Chinese Chess. Though at first intimidating with the foreign characters it has on its pieces, there was a lot of interest and one of the students immediately started reading one of the books i had on how to play XiangQi. This is the first program where I will be teaching Chinese Chess.
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Thank you
Paul Chiariello
Chess for Education Abroad, Inc. 