Week 7

From: "Alden.Charles"

Newsgroups: rec.games.go
Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2001 11:07 PM

Subject: Chinese Counting in Theory and in Practice

Many posts have offered to explain to westerners the Chinese counting system (fill all the dame, count the stones and enclosed spaces for black, and see if black's total is above a certain value with special considerations for the presence of seki, etc.)

In theory this may sound complicated, but in practice it is quite simple. In fact, for the westerner wandering into a Chinese weiqi club no effort at all is required. Instead (in the rare instance when someone actually condescends to play you), at the end of the game several of your opponent's friends will converge on the board, laughing and talking
animatedly to each other as they rearrange the stones, counting (in Chinese of course) first the area and then the stones in groups of ten, using other stones as counters. After thoroughly tearing the position apart one of them *might* become aware of your presence and turn to you and say "You lost." (Note: if in your own counting before the end you thought you were ahead, don't bother differing. You are wrong, and the position cannot be recreated.)

Charles Alden

Newsgroups: rec.games.go
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 7:40 PM

Subject: Re: Teaching children in China.

An advice to child pedagogy advocates in the West-- just forget it, cuz it won't be the factor to make Go as popular as it is in the East.
The AGA has probably wasted a huge chunk of Ing money on doing that. I thought they could have at least doubled the number on that 2000 member list with the children they have tried to teach to for the past 10 years. Without a strong culture or family background, kids won't have motivation at it cuz they lack independant thinking. The first thing they should do is to promote adult player's motivation, so they could deliver it to their second generation. When Go was introduced to Japan centuries ago, it was not promoted among kids but royalties, bureaucrats and monks--the intellectual class, then to the people, then to the children.....

Barry Phease wrote:

> Milton N. Bradley wrote:
>
> > Barry:
> >
> > Many thanks for a fascinating insight into children's Go instruction in China! But regrettably, your conclusions regarding its etiology and motivation make no sense! Please see below.
>
>> This may make no sense to you, but it does to me. It seems that we have views that are irreconcilable.
So let's say the average parent's salary is 2000 yuan/month = 500 yuan/week. And you say: "In term time they would learn in the afternoon or evenings, with lessons lasting for about 3
> ? hours." And if as you say "Each child was paying around 10
> > yuan per hour for a group lesson", then that's 30 yuan/day. So even if they do this only once/week - and that sounds unlikely from your description
> Normally they would go more than once a week.
> > - that's still a full 6% of the parent's total income, and for only ? one child! Obviously for multi-child families (most common number is 2 I believe) the total would therefore be a full 12% of the parent's total income!!
> In China most families only have one child. There are fines (and possibly other penalties) for families that choose to have more. Also there is the question of what else would they spend their money on. For most people there is no possibility of buying a bigger/better house or a car. Food is inexpensive and you can only buy so many electronic goods. Travel overseas is only recently becoming an option for spending excess savings.
>
> > So if there is no genetic or cultural motivation for the parents spending this very considerable portion of their income on a pastime at which even you admit that most can never possibly earn their living, what then is their motivation???
> I concede that there is a cultural imperative in China to give children what they want. The familial responsibilities of Confucius go both ways. This is aggravated by only having one child making them even more important. Cultural concerns can also explain why most students are male. Parents that have won the gender lottery and have male children
> > are more motivated to spend money on their development.
>
> > This totally inexplicable gap in your reasoning must be addressed and rectified if your conclusion is to have any ? credibility!
> Many NZ parents spend large amounts of money of their children's development. Private schools might cost 30% of some families' income. My son plays cricket and many young cricket players in NZ might spend more than NZ$1000 each year on equipment and coaching. My saying that there is no cultural inheritance that makes it easier for Chinese children to learn go, is independant from the cultural imperative for them to WANT to learn. What I mean is that children from anywhere would succeed if they had the same teachers, motivation and time on learning.
A teacher said of my son that it was the environment in NZ that prevented him from making faster progess at go.
>
> > > The only children who progress at chess are the ones who go to the local chess club for lessons. These are the ones who are motivated to improve.
> > That's one possible explanation! But perhaps a better one is that the kids to whom chess comes easily (i.e. whose brains are pre wired by heredity to be able to readily see and decipher the patterns on the chessboard) are the ones "who are motivated to improve".
> >
> Obviously some children enjoy mind games more than others. It is not always the ones that are good at them that enjoy them, but as in all other pursuits success breeds motivation.
> The point of my statement is that if you grab a class of children and start teaching them go most will not be motivated and none will make much progress even the ones with natural talent.
> If you want to get US/NZ children progressing at the same rate as these Chinese children then you have to attract the ones with the talent/motivation and teach them.

--
Barry Phease

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~barryp

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