Wei's Chinese Puzzles Blog 藝智堂: Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind

9/12/08

Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind

by Wei Zhang and Peter Rasmussen

The book Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind is now available. Part exhibition catalog and part photographic exploration, this beautiful book uses as its subject matter the traditional Chinese puzzles displayed in the Chinese Culture Center’s 2008 exhibition. It is the first book to document the rapidly disappearing forms of handcrafted Chinese puzzles.

Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind was written by Wei Zhang and Peter Rasmussen, who collected the puzzles during thirteen years of travels crisscrossing China and exploring Western antique markets. The forms, textures and colors of the antique puzzles are given new life through the eyes and lens of San Francisco-based painter-photographer-designer Niana Liu.

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Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind

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藝智堂 About the Yi Zhi Tang Collection 艺智堂

In 1997, Berkeley puzzle enthusiasts Wei Zhang and Peter Rasmussen traveled to Suzhou to search for an old craftsman mentioned in a forty-year-old Chinese puzzle book. They discovered that the puzzle maker had long since passed away but succeeded in locating his descendants and recording his story.

While in Suzhou, Wei and Peter found a beautiful brass nine linked rings puzzle at the weekly antique market outside Confucius Temple. That purchase was the beginning of an fifteen-year odyssey around China, Europe and the east coast of the United States during which the couple collected over 1500 antique Chinese puzzles and documented their histories. The collection was named Yi Zhi Tang (art and intelligence collection) in recognition of the exquisite craftsmanship employed in creating the old puzzles.

Wei grew up in Xinjiang Province in China. When she was eleven years old, she saw a nine linked rings puzzle for the first time and was fascinated by it. Although educated in linguistics and computer science, she finds it far more intriguing to roam the world of mechanical puzzles.

Peter is a former teacher and textbook publisher who has long been fascinated by the mathematics underlying many puzzles.

The 2008 exhibition at the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco was the first public showing of the Yi Zhi Tang collection — and it was also the first public exhibition of antique Chinese puzzles to be held anywhere in the world. During 2010 and 2011 the exhibition was on display at the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) in New York City. The collectors’ dream is to find a permanent home for their collection in a setting — preferably in China — where people of all ages can appreciate the beautiful antique puzzles and play with modern versions of them.

Email Wei: wei@c2p2.org
Email Peter: peter@c2p2.org

一九九七年，美國伯克利益智遊戲愛好者張衛和雷彼得去中國的蘇州尋找一位制作巧環的老藝人。他們唯一的線索是一本 1958 年出版的書《巧環》。到了蘇州他們得知老藝人早已去世，但是，他們找到了老藝人的後代，並通過他們瞭解到老藝人的生平。

在蘇州，張衛和雷彼得在文廟的古董市場買到了一個精美的銅制古董九連環。這個九連環開始了他們近十二年的益智遊戲收藏中國行。他們的足跡遍布中國，歐洲和美國東海岸城市。近十五年來，他們收藏了一千五百多件古典益智遊戲，並收集了有關那些益智遊戲的歷史資料。他們將這個收藏叫藝智堂，因為這些藏品都是中國古代藝術和智慧的結晶。

張衛出生在中國新疆。她在十一歲時，第一次看到九連環（五連環），並為之深深吸引。儘管後來張衛的學業是語言學和計算機，她最喜歡的還是益智遊戲。雷彼得曾是數學教師和數學課本出版人。他尤其對益智遊戲中的數學感興趣。

這次在舊金山中華文化中心的展覽是藝智堂第一次綜合公展，也是第一個關於中國益智遊戲的專展。張衛和雷彼得的夢想是是為他們的藏品建立一個博物館，在那裡，人們可以觀賞到精美的古典益智遊戲藏品，還可以親自動手動腦把玩新製益智遊戲。

Wei's Chinese Puzzles Blog 藝智堂

9/12/08

Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind

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藝智堂 About the Yi Zhi Tang Collection 艺智堂

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