“Thousands of students, parents, and residents from the Chicago area visited a 4-hour Chinese Cultural Festival on Sept. 27th,” reports organizer Xinming Simon Guo. “This fun and educational event is held to promote Chinese culture and art, and also to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Confucius Institute Day. It is organized by the Confucius Institute in Chicago, Chicago Public Schools, and the Confucius Institute at Valparaiso University. Weiqi/go is one of the most popular booths among 20 different Chinese cultural and art activity booths. As one of the organizers, I couldn’t stay at the booth to promote weiqi as usual. So I turned to the AGA for help. An E-J announcement soliciting help drew two volunteers from the Chicago weiqi community, Nathan and Nicole. They were put in charge of an activity called “Weiqi in 5 minutes” to introduce fundamental rules to passersby. Participants who could solve 80% of the go problems got gift tickets which could be redeemed during the event,” said Guo. CCTV (China Central Television), the largest network in China, broadcast the cultural festival on its international channel. A one-minute video clip featuring the weiqi booth, is here. “It is said that CCTV plans to promote more weiqi on their channels,” says Guo. “I believe the major reason is that Xi Jinping, the President of China, knows how to play weiqi, which was confirmed by Nie Weiping 9P.” – Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor, Photo by Xinming Simon Guo: Nathan and Nicole teach kids how to play go.
