UC Berkeley takes novel approach to Sanguosha
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E-mail China Daily, August 4, 2012
A popular card game from China is in this fall's course catalog at the University of California, Berkeley.
Sanguosha is a role-playing card game with Chinese elements. Sanguo means Three Kingdoms, and Sha means killers. The game is based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a classic Chinese novel from the Ming Dynasty (AD 1368-1644) that draws from events of the Three Kingdoms period (AD 220-280).
"I knew UC Berkeley had some pretty awesome courses, but this tops it all," said Andrew Tam, a 24-year-old graduate student, referring to the state university's main campus.
Each player takes a role card based on characters from the novel, equipped with distinct skills and weapons. War in the game is waged channeling the fury, intelligence and cunning of the novel's characters.
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Young people play Sanguosha, a role-playing card game with Chinese elements. Sanguo means Three Kingdoms, and Sha means killers. The game is based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a classic Chinese novel from the Ming Dynasty (AD 1368-1644) that draws from events of the Three Kingdoms period (AD 220-280). [Photo provided to China Daily] |
"Sanguosha is very popular in China because it's related to its cultural heritage," UC Berkeley law professor Robert Berring, the faculty sponsor of the course, said.
Berring believes it's important that students understand the novel, so he tries to get undergraduates acquainted with essential philosophy dating back to China's ancient dynasties.
"China has such a rich and special history. If you don't understand that, you cannot possibly understand China," he said.
Understanding the age-old system of rules exemplified in Sanguosha would help any student grasp the constant changes taking place in modern Chinese society, said Berring, who has taught Berkeley undergrads a course titled Chinese Law and Society for about 30 years.
Sanguosha is an elective offered through a university program that lets students, under the supervision of a faculty member, design and implement a course. Trevor Chou, Darian Ng and Katherine Pan, all senior undergrads, are the course facilitators.
Chou, 21, a Chinese-American, said the idea for the course sprang from his interest in the Three Kingdoms era, enhanced by playing the computer game Dynasty Warriors in middle school.
"The game introduced me to a lot of the names of famous historical figures in the Three Kingdoms period and I learned the fascinating stories of their exploits," he said.
Chou started searching for an English-language edition of Romance of the Three Kingdoms but couldn't find one. He first saw Sanguosha — which is similar to the modern game Bang! — being played by Chinese students on campus but didn't join them because he couldn't read Chinese characters well.
In China, the game is typically played in large groups of teenagers and young adults who huddle around tables in cafes and college bars.
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