Long description:

From ancient gameboards to Honor of Kings, games as cultural agents

Games as global and connected phenomena have been examined in the rising scholarly field of game studies, but relatively little has been published on the history of games and gaming in China. Weiqi (a.k.a. Go), one of the world?s oldest board games, originated in China; a variety of Chinese card, dice, board, sport, and performance games have been developed over the millennia; and China is quickly becoming a major player in the contemporary digital game industry. In exploring games and practices of play across social and historical contexts, this volume examines representations of gender, class, materiality, and imaginations of the nation in Chinese and Sinophone contexts, while addressing ways in which games inhabit, represent, disrupt, or transform cultural and social practices. Both analog and computer games are represented in analyses that draw connections between the traditional and the modern and between local or regional and higher-order economic, cultural, and political structures. Among the topics explored are rock carvings of board games, weiqi cultures, scholars? and courtesans? games, gambling, games based on literature, video-game politics, and appropriation of Chinese culture in video games.

The open access publication of this book was made possible by a grant from the James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation.

"Games and Play in Chinese & Sinophone Cultures is a pioneering work . . . By informing readers about and interrogating ludic China, historical and contemporary, the chapters constitute a significant contribution to game studies and to Chinese studies."

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments

Timeline of Dynasties

Introduction: Gameplay in Chinese and Sinophone Worlds

Li Guo, Douglas Eyman, and Hongmei Sun

1. Groups on the Grid: Weiqi Cultures in Song-Yuan-Ming China

Zach Berge-Becker

2. Newly Discovered Game Board Rock Carvings in Hong Kong: Apotropaic Symbolism or Ludic Culture?

César Guarde-Paz

3. Splendid Journeys: The Board Games of a Late Qing Scholar

Rania Huntington

4 Exclusive Pleasures on the Cheap: Yuan Dynasty Sanqu Songs on Courtesan Kickball

Patricia Sieber

5. Games in Late Ming and Early Qing Erotic Literature

Jie Guo

6. The Courtesans' Drinking Games in The Dream in the Green Bower

Li Guo

7. Ghostly Dicing: Gambling Games and Deception in Ming-Qing Short Stories

Jiayi Chen

8. Playing Journey to the West

Hongmei Sun

9. How China's Young "Internet Addicts" Gamify the Disciplinary Treatment Camp

Yichen Rao

10. Gaming while Aging: The Ludification of Later Life in Pokémon GO

Keren He

11. The Video Game Chinese Parents and Its Political Potentials

Florian Schneider

12. The Public Gaming Discourse of Honor of Kings in China

Jiaqi Li

13. Translation and Chinese Culture in Video Games

Douglas Eyman

Glossary

Bibliography

List of Contributors

Index