Chinese Chess

Today's thing is a Chinese chess set (xiang qi) that I'm making for a friend's birthday. Chinese chess is exactly like chess. Well, exactly like chess except there is a river in the middle of the board. Oh, and there are elephants instead of bishops and they can't cross the river. And the soldiers (pawns) can move horizontally once they cross the river. And the general (king) and his two advisers can't leave the palace. That's pretty much it. Got it?

I never liked chess, but I'll play any game that has an elephant in it.

My set is pretty rough. I didn't want to spend too much time on it and my main focus was playability. Like most Chinese chess sets the pieces are just round discs. Mine are wooden. Why didn't I just buy him a chess set, you may ask. Well, Chinese sets actually have Chinese characters written on them instead of pictures. My friend can't read Chinese. Sets with pictures are not so easy to find.  The pieces are done but the board will take a little more time. It's no work of art, but it is today's thing!

For more about Chinese chess, check out Wikipedia's Xiang Qi page.

And, just for the sake of scale, here's the little globe thing I made yesterday:

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