The Chinese game of Shengguan tu.

AuthorMorgan, Carole

It can be argued that board games reflect the society in which they are conceived. Thus Monopoly reflects the entrepreneurial spirit of a capitalist society, while the Chinese game of Shengguan tu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] or "Promoting Officials" reflects the obstacles confronting officials throughout their careers. (1) On the scaled-down reality of a Monopoly board, players can display their entrepreneurial talents by acquiring desirable properties. By increasing the number of buildings they construct on these plots, owners charge ever higher rents until the other players run out of funds. By contrast, success in Shengguan tu is measured not only by the amount of funds that a player accumulates on his way to high office, but also by the prestige that the office confers on the holder.

However, social approval comes at the price of decision making freedom. While Monopoly players need not always act on what the dice suggest, players of Shengguan tu appear to enjoy much less leeway. The amounts they must pay in fines when demoted or contributions they can expect when promoted are inscribed on the game's board or chart. In principle, players must comply with these amounts, denominated in tokens or chou [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] inscribed on the section on which they happen to land. In practice, Shengguan tu players, like their real-life counterparts, are able to work around these constraints. Given that corruption inflected all levels of the premodern civil and military bureaucracies, especially during the Qing dynasty on which the present-day game is based, promotion depended not so much on an individual's competence, as on his ability to buy offices, titles, and patronage. Consequently, the frequent use of the term juan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] "donation" on Shengguan tu game charts accurately reflects the bribery that plagued the lives of most officials.

Though Shengguan tu bears some resemblance to "Snakes and Ladders," its financial component makes it far more complex than the children's game we know. In fact, the penalties and rewards associated with almost every move have turned Shengguan tu into a gambling game, which may explain why it is still played in Hong Kong and Taiwan and, perhaps, even on the mainland.

However, Cai Ce [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], the author of a pamphlet discussed below, deplores this trend by claiming that the game should not be a vulgar entertainment, but a graphic learning tool which clearly depicts the workings of the Qing bureaucracy. This view is encouraged by an inscription on the large game-chart that states: "Historical material for the study of officialdom." That Shengguan tu can be used for this purpose is owing to the fact that the game is played on a large paper chart that is divided into compartments, almost all of which are preceded by the name of a Qing administrative office or bureau. These bureaus are then divided into sections, each of which bears a title. The aim of the game is to advance from the low ranking offices around the rim of the chart to the high-ranking ones at its center while accumulating as large a cache of funds as possible.

Shengguan tu game-charts come in two sizes: large and small. The larger version is approximately twice the size of the smaller one and contains far more bureaus, but both games are played with dice. These dice are also different from the ones we use by virtue of the fact that on Chinese dice the dot indicating 1 is larger and colored red, as is also the number 4. (2) Moves on the larger chart require six dice whereas only four are needed for the smaller version. Furthermore, the dice are not rolled on a flat surface but tossed in a bowl placed at the center of the chart. (3)

Since I was able to acquire both a large game-chart printed in Taiwan and a small one printed in Shanghai, it is clear that Shengguan tu game charts are still being produced. Charts printed in Canton were also quite common in the U.S. towards the end of the nineteenth century. According to Stewart Culin, author of a paper on Chinese dice games dated 1895, this was due to the game's popularity among Chinese laborers working in America, a point we shall return to shortly. (4) The same author also notes:

 [Though these laborers] come from a comparatively small area, there exist variations in their methods of gambling as well as in the terminology of their games. The latter is largely made up of slang and colloquial words ... the gamblers are usually the most ignorant class, and those most familiar with the games are often least able to furnish correct Chinese transcriptions of the terms employed in them. (5) 

While this passage applies to many Chinese gambling games, the poorly educated gamblers of Shengguan tu may also be responsible for some of the corruption in the charts that have come down to us.

THE SOURCES AND THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF SHENGGUAN TU

The Sources

The few sources dealing with Shengguan tu are confused and tend to feed off each other. One of the earliest is found in a short passage by the twelfth-century author Xu Du [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in the Quesao bian [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. (6) Though the passage is quoted in some of our other sources, it is corrupt and textual difficulties have been ignored or amended in the works that quote it. It should also be noted that Xu Du claims that his knowledge of the game was, at least in part, orally transmitted, which may explain some of the confusion that mars his text.

Another source is the Gaiyu congkao [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], a collection of miscellaneous notes by the Qing scholar Zhao Yi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (1727-1814), (7) which includes a short chapter on Shengguan tu. (8) While this provides some valuable information, the fact that the author simply reproduced the corrupt passage he quotes from Quesao bian makes the accuracy of the rest of the chapter suspect. The same is true of the modern encyclopedic dictionary Zhongwen da cidian [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], which reproduces in its entry on the game both the above texts without attempting to correct their defects. It also includes a few lines on the rules of the game, similar to those found in the pamphlet but without citing a source.

By far the longest and most accessible source is the 1968 pamphlet by Cai Ce, cited in note 3 above, which purports to trace the historical background of Shengguan tu and describe how the game is played. But Cai's account of the game's history, which quotes none of the above sources, is so flawed as to be practically useless and his description of the rules is also open to question. In order to deflect criticism, Cai informs us that he does not remember the rules well, since he only played the game as a boy, with his aunts, over the New Year holiday. (9)

From the historical point of view, the most valuable Chinese source is also the earliest. In a composition entitled "Touzi xuange xu" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (A Preface to Selecting a Bureau by throwing Dice), the Tang scholar Fang Qianli [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] refers to an ancestor of Shengguan tu and thus proves that an early version of the game was played in the mid-ninth century. (10)

Among Western sources we are fortunate to have the paper by Stewart Culin mentioned above, which also calls attention to what may be the earliest Western description of the game. This is in a book in Latin, entitled De Ludis Orientalibilis, published in Oxford in 1694. While I have been unable to find any information about its author Robert Hyde, nor have I been able to consult the book, it is clear from Culin's paper that he had seen the work, since he reproduces the chushen compartment in his pamphlet. (11) The passages quoted by Culin, though regrettably short, do provide us with some information on how the game was played in the seventeenth century. (12)

Still another Western source is Leon Stover, who devotes a few pages to the game in his Cultural Ecology of Chinese Civilization. (13) While there can be no doubt that this author saw a chart of the game, since he goes to the trouble of translating the names of the bureaus on the chart, his description of the game is so confused that it is unlikely he ever saw it played. He has, however, some interesting comments to make on the power structure that is expressed by Shengguan tu, a point we shall return to below.

By means of these limited and often imperfect sources, let us see how much of Shengguan tu's history can be reconstructed.

The Historical Background

All our sources agree that the inventor of the game was a certain Li He [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (or he [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) who lived during the Tang dynasty. (14) While Li is not given a biography in the dynastic histories, his names does occur in a memorial to the throne by Liu Fen [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] that has been preserved in his biography in the Xin Tang shu. (15) From Fen's biography we learn that Li's style-name was Zixuan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and that his last known appointment was as prefect of Hezhou [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. (16)

The circumstances and purposes of the memorial shed some light on this obscure official, and may be summarized as follows. In 828, during the jinshi examination, Liu Fen took the occasion to express views potentially critical of the emperor (Wenzong, r. 827-40). In Liu's opinion, good government could only be achieved by promoting loyal officials, dismissing corrupt ones, and restricting the power of the court eunuchs. Liu's frankness made the principal examiners uneasy, and they were afraid that they might lose their posts. Consequently, when the time came to appoint twenty-three new officials, Liu Fen's name was not on the list. This caused Li He, who had been appointed aide to the regional military office of He'nan, to petition the emperor stating that he was...

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