Chess Strategies and Life Skills

 Karolyn is writing an article about learning pattern recognition, patience, planning, adapting, weighing tradeoffs, stopping to rethink...

Aleck: Chess? Was that one of the Chinese scholarly skills? Music, games, calligraphy and painting?
Karolyn: In the Chinese pursuits, it was go, not chess.
Aleck: And how do these skills show up in your own life?
Karolyn: Well pattern recognition helped me notice I always procrastinate on Fridays. So I shifted heavy tasks to Thursdays. Mini life-hack.
Aleck: A Thursday Gambit. Strong opening. Planning?
Karolyn: Well, Sanae saved money from her band job as a drummer to buy a motorcycle. And then she learned economics. That was planning, and patience.
Aleck: And adapting quickly? 
Karolyn: My train got cancelled, but instead of spiralling, I reorganised my whole route on the spot. Like abandoning an opening and going positional.
Aleck: Fair enough. Nothing worse than a commute that feels like a zugzwang.
Karolyn: I also used “weighing trade-offs” when deciding whether to take a higher-paying job with a hideous commute. I declined. No point winning a pawn if you lose the endgame. Then other friends pitched in with their stories. Tina offered the “know when to stop and rethink” skill by pausing a career change, stepping back, and avoiding a rushed blunder.
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Voice-over
Aleck adds a contribution by mentioning Jennifer Shahade talking about how chess builds creativity and confidence. Karolyn knows of Jennifer (being a woman chess grandmaster twice) and notes her boldness with calculation, making confident moves based on strategic reasoning. Leads to nurturing intuition.

Riffing on Sign of the Cross mnemonic in Shanghai

After noodles in the Jing Jiang dining room…
Jim: Care for a beer?
Horace: I-píng píjiǔ! One of the few phrases I’ve picked up. Means “a bottle of beer,” right?
Jim: So I hear. Let’s go find a cold one before the night gets too philosophical. (Arriving at the elevator) Shall we take her up? (Jim pats himself in four places: forehead, chest, left pocket, right wrist.) Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch.
Horace: What? Some kind of ritual?
Jim: Never know when you fly in one of these Chinese elevators. Old habit. Used to say it before flying missions in the war. If you got shot down, those were the essentials. Eyes to see, balls to run, money to bribe, and a watch to know when to move.
Horace: I always thought it was a cheeky way of making the sign of the cross.
Jim: It is. Catholic schoolboys’ version. Helped us remember the order.
Horace: Did it ever work? The ritual, I mean.
Jim: Well, got shot down over Belgium once. I had all four. Made it back with a limp and a story. So yeah, I suppose it worked.
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Voice-over
Jim riffs on the traditional Catholic mnemonic “Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch,” which itself was a way for schoolboys to remember the order of the sign of the cross. That said, the sentiment behind the phrase, checking for essential items before a dangerous mission, resonates with the kind of pragmatic rituals that soldiers and airmen might adopt. Many veterans developed personal routines or superstitions before flying or going into combat, often blending practicality with a touch of gallows humor.

Paper Tiger

Recalling adolescent activism…

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Anton: A friend I found recently on social media I had known wrote a poem. Back in the mid-60s, at university.

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Paul: About you?

Mai Long, 1958:
Chinese poster

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Anton: He referred to me as a tiger. But “a paper tiger”.

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Paul: Like you weren’t a real tiger?

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Anton: But he finished it with “Then we saw this paper tiger had atomic teeth.” At the time I thought it was a most original metaphor for my wannabe activism.

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Paul: And then you found out that it was a Mao metaphor.

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Anton: Yes. It hadn’t been such an original poem after all. Perhaps he meant that my activism wasn’t so original either.

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Voice-over

Mao’s reference to paper tiger in 1956 was to reactionaries, American imperialism, the atomic bomb. Called them paper tigers meaning they weren’t as dangerous as they looked. But the bomb, well that could be dangerous. Hence the Khrushchevian reference to atomic teeth.

Propaganda poster by Mai Long from 1958. Man wearing a tiger’s mask and holding an American flag. Chinese farmers, soldiers and workers ridiculing him.

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Russian Military Meets Chinese Circus

In a grand hall…

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Russian General: They’re all getting along well.

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Chinese Rabbit Ringleader: All our performers speak Russian.

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Russian General: That is fortunate.

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Chinese Rabbit Ringleader: Even if Russians do not speak Chinese.

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Russian General: That will no doubt come. For now we must present a union against the madness of Washington.

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Four hours later…

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Russian General: A good party, dah?

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Chinese Rabbit Ringleader: But a bit much vodka, she ma? None of your men, from colonel, lieutenant, sergeant to private couldn’t manage it.

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Russian General: And none of your troup! Odin iz nikh!

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Voice-over

Matryoshka dolls were traditionally babushka. But this set features five military ranks from general to private. And the Chinese silk animals, after surviving Mao from fifty years ago, couldn’t outperform the Russians in talking and toasting.

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The Panda in the Kanga Pouch and other metaphors

An animal analogy...

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Trev: Here’s a good metaphor. A panda in a kangaroo pouch. Even rhymes.

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from The Economist, Jan 19th 2019

Basil: Where’s that from?

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Trev: The Economist on January 19th. Clever. The kanga is Australia. The panda is China.

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Basil: What’s the panda doing in the pouch?

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Trev: China is popping up building roads and ports in Pacific islands. Near Australia.

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Basil: Chinese geopolitical strategy in a lot of regions.

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Trev: But what got our goat was that the Chinese wanted to build a military base in Vanuatu.

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Basil: Ouch. Close to home.

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Trev: Right in what we Aussies regard as our “patch”. Even if it is water.

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Voice-over

Clear where the artist got the “pouch” idea from. A fair swag of other metaphors in the article too, like “dropping the ball” playing “whack-a-mole.”

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