标题：外国记者眼中的中国象棋
历史悠久的中国象棋对于外国记者来说是一道迷人的风景，也是永恒的文化之谜
美国<<时代周刊>>---亚洲最有意思的地方 （2004刊节选）
有数十年历史的庙街榕树头棋局小风景获选为亚洲最佳弈棋地点，《时代》是这样介绍的：“如果你要找一个香港原始地方，不是堂皇的购物商场、不是玻璃幕墙大厦，而是香港的庙街……在庙宇门前的广场上，象棋手摊开棋盘，来者不拒。”
麻地庙街中国象棋战情激烈，尤其是庙街的棋手，外表温文却随时杀人措手不及，棋局的气氛更是紧张、迷人。
榕树头棋局是市区之选，位于港岛石澳郊野公园的龙脊远足径则是《时代》的避世桃源，推介说：“你会感到自己身处遥远的地方，事实却是与市区那样贴近。 ”
美国《纽约客》：--比奥运会更精彩的中国式棋局（08年刊）
奥运会男子公路自行车赛场外的人行道上，两个男人坐在凳子上，在一张木板上下中国象棋，对周围躁动的人群无动于衷。即便看到便衣警察，他们也没什么表示---北京本地人早就学会观察路人。八达岭皮鞋店门前的这块槐树底下，是下棋者的地盘。对奕中的一位，名叫张永林（音），是这家鞋店的老板。他的对手是张友棋（音），是个退休的老人。他俩可不是亲戚。熟人们都叫他们老张和小张。自行车比赛开始前40 分钟，一名志愿者过来通知他俩离开。
“等我们下完这盘棋吧，”老张说。
他手摇着一把金漆折扇，做着摆手姿势表明这盘棋不会下得太久。这名志愿者的级别较低---没穿着阿迪的ClimaLite---她耸了耸肩就没管他们了。几分钟以后，一名北京奥组委的志愿者过来了，“你们必须搬开，这儿一会就要比赛了”。
“知道了，”老张说，“我们马上就下完了。”
这一次，手摇折扇就显得更满不在乎了。年轻的志愿者看起来不情愿去惹这个老人，于是棋局继续。此时，有7个人在看棋。其中一人告诉我说老张是邻里当中最厉害的棋手。在中国，下棋也是一项运动：中国象棋协会归中华全国体育总会管理，就象中国自行车协会和中国篮协一样。他们还管着桥牌、飞镖，还有中国拔河协会。
虽然长久以来中国在国际象棋也有不错的战绩。但是中国象棋给人的感觉才像是一种真正的全民运动，看棋也一样。甚至看棋者还有座位。通常在每次落子之前，至少有一位看棋者给出建议。而其它看客则在落子以后再发表议论。这种双人运动对于观众来说---他们既是教练也是裁判---你可以想象它也可以激起下棋人的争斗。但所有攻击都只指导于棋盘上。在喇嘛庙旁，老张和小张每下一步棋，都把棋子拍得震天响。
啪！
“送给你的马吃！”
啪！
“我要找个炮架，我要找个炮架！”
（“对，对！这才是正着！”
啪！
“这样太便宜你了！”
离自行车赛还有24分钟，在两位棋手被三次要求离开后，小张终于认输了。他拿出北京范儿：把棋子撒在盘面上并大吼一声，“老张执黑！”于是他们立马开始了又一局棋。此时，已经有15人围观，包括4名穿制服的保安志愿者。隔一会就有一名便衣踱过来，小旗子拿在腰后，看上几分钟。
下棋的时候，老张把的折扇玩得象个大师。他在思考的时候，扇子合上。每走完一步，他总是把扇子潇洒地打开。棋局临近尾声，显然老张处于不利地位。棋迷们突然一阵躁动，像是被什么叮了一下；但老头仍然没言语；最后，他勉强微微一笑。这时离男子自行车决赛开始已不到10分钟。
现在人群朝着隔离路障拥过去，很长一段时间大街上空荡荡的。最后有个人喊，“他们来啦！”
“车来了！”
“都是大众车，”某人说。领头的车辆是黑色大众，车窗涂着油彩。然后是一辆警用摩托、一辆警车。紧接着是一辆重型车，上面有个可以象左轮手枪那样旋转的平台。
“那是电视镜头。”
两名最前面的自行车手象阵风样一闪而过，是智利人和玻利维亚人。半分钟后，整个自行车队飞弛而过，人群都来不及做何反应。没人知道谁骑在前面；那衣服上没有印着中国；车手们面容恍惚。霎时，人们似乎被惊得目瞪口呆。随后，人群发出一阵欢呼，一长列补给车辆过来了。
“为啥汽车顶上还有自行车？”
“那是备用车。”
“每辆车上都有旗帜，看！”
“可是，这些车不是大众车。”
“我想，这是斯柯达车。”
“斯柯达，绝对是。”
“还有一辆救护车！”
人群目送最后一辆救护车远去。几分钟以后，大街空了。然而另一种赛车已经开始。首先是一辆快散架的三轮车，拉着一捆木料；然后是一辆普通自行车，再接下来是辆本田出租、一辆满载瓶装水的卡车、一大队单数车牌的汽车：1，7，5，9。人群开始散去，志愿者们撤去隔离路障。老张沓着鞋回去吃午饭。他说，“不分胜负”，指的是棋局。此前，他曾把扇子上的书法展示给我看，是一首以“莫生气”为题的诗：
“它让我在下棋时保持心态平和”，他说。诗是这样的：
"人生就像一出戏，来往世间只因缘。相守到老不容易，何故将它不珍惜？"
（译者注：真辛苦这位老外了，把中文翻成英文。俺又费劲翻成汉文诗，不知与原诗隔到哪儿去了...汗）
德国《星期日法兰克福汇报》--“棋盘上的大炮”。
在德国，约120名活跃分子试图通过棋盘上的厮杀解开中国这个永恒之谜。德国中国象棋协会的成员虽然不多，但个个是狂热的棋迷。这个小协会甚至还举办起了正规联赛。今年一月，来自纽伦堡的姑娘莱娅.施密特在联赛中脱颖而出。从7月31日起，她成为了参加在巴黎举办的中国象棋世界锦标赛的首位欧洲女选手，要独自与亚洲的女棋手们周旋。这位新人对自己在巴黎的胜算有清醒的认识，她说：“参赛最重要，要是能下一两局和棋就是成功。”或许张章（译音）会取得更好的成绩。这名在卡尔斯鲁厄求学的中国留学生将代表德国队出战。他要保证德国队不在比赛中垫底，而德国队的目标是超过芬兰队乃至日本队。
全世界至少有1亿人下中国象棋，而中国和越南棋手的水平是其他国家的选手无法企及的。象棋在两国是地道的群众运动，人们普遍靠下棋来消磨时间。在中国，中央电视5台定期报道重要赛事，小孩五六岁就开始观看父母或兄弟姐妹们对弈。而象棋逼真的战场气氛也有助于它成为群众运动：“红军”与“黑军”在河界两边的浅滩上厮杀，司令官则分别坐镇于南北两端的“宫殿”中，但在那儿它们竟然也会受到炮火的袭击。
中国象棋有上千年的历史。尽管大多数专家认为，象棋发源于公元5世纪到6世纪的印度，但中国学者另有见解。他们认为，象棋在公元前478年到公元前221年的“战国”时代诞生于中国。根据这种说法，中国象棋是世界上最早出现的象棋游戏。在中国象棋中，坐标式的方格即是战场,棋子占据横纵的交叉点。大战略家也曾从中国象棋中得到启迪：中国的改革家邓小平在棋盘边制订方案；美国的劲敌胡志明曾创作过关于越南式中国象棋的诗歌。
中国开展国际象棋运动只有20年时间，但目前中国女选手却主宰着世界锦标赛。世界冠军谢军和诸宸成功的秘诀正是中国象棋。在接触国际象棋前，她们先在中国象棋的厮杀中练就了胆魄和强悍的棋风。在今年4月举行的迪拜国际象棋公开赛中，16岁的中国选手王皓出人意料地夺得了冠军。就像南美街头足球造就了罗那尔多一样，中国象棋为这些国际象棋明星打下了坚实的基础。
俺水濂山人看完这篇小文章很感兴趣——于是，俺打开搜索google英文搜索，找了一下这篇文章，其出处，应该是《the New Yorker》Sept 15, 2008的节选文章。翻译质量还是不错的，过滤过了一些敏感词。有兴趣的朋友，直接读英文，另有一番味道。
另外，俺比较感兴趣的是：这首poem到底原中文是什么样子的（即以下这句话：
Life is just like a play, and we are here only because of destiny, It's not easy to be together until we're old, so why not cherish it?
）？哪位好事者帮俺找找看？谢谢了！
The men's road-cycling final was the day after the opening ceremonies, and it was one of the few events that didn't require a ticket. The race began downtown, winding through the city before heading north to the Great Wall. Down the street from the Lama Temple, white metal barricades had been erected along the sidewalks. The ClimaLite crew was there, stationed at intervals of thirty feet, and there were also local volunteers in "Capital Public Order Worker" T-shirts. Plainclothes cops worked the crowd. In China, undercover officials have a distinct look: well-built men in their thirties or forties, dressed in button-down shirts, dark trousers, and cheap leather loafers. They almost always have crewcuts. At the cycling race, they had been issued little Chinese flags in a halfhearted attempt at cover, but they didn't wave them like everybody else. They held the flags beside their hips, like weapons at the ready.
On the sidewalk, two men played the game of Chinese chess known as xiangqi. They sat on stools around a wooden board, and they paid no attention to the growing mob of people. If they noticed the plainclothes men, they gave no sign--Beijing residents had learned long ago to take surveillance in stride. And this was the chess players' turf: in the shade of a scholar tree, in front of the Badaling Leather Shoe Shop. Zhang Yonglin, one of the players, owned the shop. His opponent was a retired auto mechanic named Zhang Youzhi. The players were unrelated, and locals referred to them as Little Zhang and Old Zhang. Forty minutes before the start of the cycling race, a volunteer told them to leave.
"Wait until we finish this game," Old Zhang said.
He carried a fan inscribed with gold calligraphy, and he gestured with it, a brief swipe that indicated that the game wouldn't last long. The volunteer was lower caste--no ClimaLite--and she shrugged and left the men alone. A few minutes later, an official BOCOG volunteer walked over. "You need to move," he said. "There's going to be a bicycle race here."
"We know that," Old Zhang said. "We're just going to finish the game."
This time, the flip of the fan was more dismissive. The young volunteer seemed reluctant to challenge this elderly man, and so the game continued. By now, seven people had gathered to watch, and one of them told me that Old Zhang was the best player in the neighborhood. In China, chess is a sport: the Chinese Xiangqi Association is administered by the All-China Sports Federation, just like the Chinese Cycling Association and the Chinese Basketball Association. The federation also handles bridge, Go, darts, and the Chinese Tug-of-War Association. If this seems a muddled view of athletics, then it helps to think of the All-China Sports Federation as being concerned with competitive pastimes, broadly speaking. Beneath this umbrella organization, some associations exist with the primary goal of competing against foreigners at the Olympics. This is why the Chinese excel at obscure sports, and why so many of their 2008 gold medals were gained in events that average citizens almost never encounter: archery (one gold), sailing (one), shooting (five), weight lifting (eight). They won a gold in canoeing, a form of water transport as Chinese as the tomahawk. It's a triumph of bureaucracy, and it shouldn't surprise anybody. If a nation can organize 1.7 million volunteers, from Tiananmen Square to the Great Wall, all of them outfitted according to subtle distinctions of class and status, then surely it should be possible to find and train one woman capable of winning the RS:X windsurfing gold. (Her name is Yin Jian.)
But, like the concept of bureaucracy, chess had a presence in China long before medal counts. And Chinese chess truly feels like a sport, as does chess-watching. It even has set positions. There's always at least one observer who gives advice before a move is made. Another onlooker waits until the move is finished before he offers his comments. This is the pairs event for spectators--the coach and the critic--and you would expect it to drive players to violence. But all aggression is directed at the board. Near the Lama Temple, Old Zhang and Little Zhang slammed the wooden pieces as hard as they could with every move.
Thwack!
"I'm giving your horse something to eat!"
Thwack!
"I need a gate! I need a gate!"
"Right, right! That's the right move!"
Thwack!
"I'm giving it to you cheap!"
With twenty-four minutes left until the cycling, and after the players had been asked to leave on three separate occasions, Little Zhang finally conceded the match. He did this Beijing style: he dumped the pieces on the ground and howled, "Old Zhang plays black!" Then they immediately began another game. By now, they had an audience of fifteen people, including four security volunteers in uniform. Periodically, a plainclothes man wandered over, flag at the hip, to watch for a few minutes.
As Old Zhang played, he used his fan like a master. He folded it when thinking; after a move, he always unfurled it with a flourish. Near the end of the game, when it became clear that he had left himself vulnerable, the fan began to move jerkily, as if in irritation; but still the old man said nothing. At last, he conceded with a smile. There were fewer than ten minutes left when the men finally put away the board.
Now the crowd pressed toward the barricades, and for a long time the road was empty. "They're coming!" somebody finally said.
"Cars are coming!"
"They're all Volkswagens," somebody else observed. The advance vehicles were black VW sedans with tinted windows. Then came a police motorcycle and police car, followed by a truck with a big platform that swivelled like a gun.
"That's the television camera!"
Two lead cyclists whizzed past, a Chilean and a Bolivian. Half a minute later, the entire pack went by so fast that the crowd could hardly react. Nobody had any idea who was in front; the uniforms weren't printed in Chinese; the cyclists' faces were a blur. For an instant, there was stunned silence, and then everybody saw the long line of support cars and cheered.
"Why do they have the bikes on top?"
"That's for fixing them."
"Each one has a flag--look!"
"Those aren't Volkswagens, though."
"They're Skodas, I think."
"Skodas, definitely."
"There's an ambulance!"
They gave the last-place ambulance a good sendoff. For a few minutes, the street was empty, and then it was as if another race had begun. The leader was a battered bicycle cart carrying scraps of wood. A normal bike followed, then a Honda cab. A truck full of bottled water. A parade of odd-numbered plates: 1, 7, 5, 9. The crowd dispersed; volunteers dismantled barricades; Old Zhang shuffled off to lunch. "It was O.K.," he said, referring to the bicycle race. Earlier, he had shown me his fan's calligraphy, which consisted of a poem entitled "Do Not Get Angry."
"It reminds me to stay calm when playing chess," he said. The opening verses read:
Life is just like a play, and we are here only because of destiny, It's not easy to be together until we're old, so why not cherish it?
文章很好，学习了。其中的莫生气诗应该是比较常见的。但可能版本稍有不同，我搜了一下，其中一个版本是这样的。
人生就像一出戏，因为有缘才相聚。
相扶到老不容易，是否更该去珍惜。
为了小事发脾气，回头想想又何必。
别人生气我不气，气出病来无人替。
我若气死谁如意，况且伤身又费力。
邻居朋友不要比，儿孙琐事由他去。
吃苦享乐在一起，神仙羡慕好伴侣。