A nice article about the very popular casual go meeting in a Starbucks in Shanghai, the new type of place to play go
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I had quite some difficulties to find where to play in Shanghai so this is great!
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Its great that they have this in Shanghai – its actually really difficult to find places in mainland China where you can play casually in person unless you interrupt a children’s go class. I hope they will replicate this in other cities.
One time I spoke with a taxi driver who claimed to be 1 dan – I asked him why one can’t see go players in the street like with Xiangqi, he said that Go is too complicated for common people (which I don’t think is true).
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I was not able to open the link.
Was this the article you were referring to?
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It depends of provinces, in some weiqi is more popular. I found a bunch of meeting around Shanghai but few in the city itself.
Same place differents articles !!
(i repair the link!)
i personally really like this “trend” of go baduk in cafe, it’s enhance the social aspect of the games, mix different population ( genre, nationality, level), beginner friendly, comfortable, easily ,accessible, and make a wonderful vector of propagation ~~
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100% agree. In Nijmegen (the Netherlands) we started this social aspect of playing go in a cafe more than 20 years ago. That first initiative still exists, and a year ago I started another similar like initiative. Only too often the go scene is only looking inward and forget to propagate itself. If you don’t look into the future and forget to bring in new blood into a local scene, your local go community is doomed.
A trend? Café as a meeting place in France is very common since long ago. It’s was not always fully appreciated (mostly because of smoke and noises) and this not always the place to be at night for children.
But in Shanghai specifically it’s original although I’m not that enthusiastic about the Starbucks cafe and prices.
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I’d greatly appreciate a breakdown of these spots – I’ve traveled mainland China extensively but can only seem to run into Go schools for kids.
Go schools are a good start, ask the teachers where they play besides their school. Sometimes they are in some weiqi QQ or WeChat groups too, those having face to face meetings.
I may help for the cities I went, send me a pm if you go somewhere, but I may not be up to date…