Understanding the Elephant: A Xiangqi Primer Part 1: History of Xiangqi

This new work by Jim Png is another great book in the non Chinese Xiangqi literature, and absolutely the first exhaustive work on Chinese Chess history in English. Thanks to this book, reader will discover a lot of facts and information not only about Xiangqi history, but also on general Chinese history, which is rather unknown to average European and American reader. This book is a real treasure trove of information, cchinese culture and history. Jim Png opens the gate of Chinese world (not only of the Xiangqi world) and dissolves the language barrier, helping us to understand better the Chinese culture.

His Understanding the Elephant series is indispensable for studying Xiangqi.

I found this book was OK to read. Die hard fans of the game or history buffs will enjoy this more. The book goes over the history of the game from its beginnings until today. The title is a little misleading with the Part 1 in it. This books has nothing to do with game play, just historical facts. The author or publisher should have dropped the part 1 & simply labeled History of Xiangqi.Part 2 of this series deals with game play, which is what must players want to know.