Gaming and Chess Villa Miscellaneous Writings

Author: (Qing) Xie Zhangting
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2000-11-01
Features: Xie Zhangting, a scholar who passed the imperial examination in 1864 (the third year of the Tongzhi reign); in 1877 (the third year of the Guangxu reign), he became an Imperial Censor as a result of his performance in the examination at the Grand Secretariat, already at the age of 58. He served as the principal of Fuzhou Zhiyong College for 16 years. Xie Zhangting lived to the age of 84 and experienced many major historical events in modern Chinese history, such as the Opium War and the Boxer Indemnity. Xie Zhangting was skilled in poetry, ci (a classical Chinese poetic form), and classical prose, with his greatest achievements in the creation of ci and the theory of ci studies. He was a prominent literary figure in modern Chinese literary history. Many of Xie Zhangting's writings have been preserved in manuscript form. The author has encountered 16 manuscript copies of Xie Zhangting's works, with 7 stored in the library of Fujian Normal University and 9 in the Fujian Provincial Library. Among these manuscript copies, the Guaqi Shanzhuang Poetry Collection (a 15-volume edition) is the most valuable. Guaqi Shanzhuang was Xie's residence in his later years, with its ruins located today in the area of Aofeng in Fuzhou. The term "Guaqi" (literally "gambling chess") is derived from The New Stories of the World (Shishuo Xinyu), where Xie An, a friend of Xie Zhangting, gambled for a villa in a chess game during the Battle of Fei River. Xie Zhangting used this allusion to subtly express disdain for the modern foreign powers.