East Asia's river boards, five-in-a-row and folded fortunes

On this page

1. Xiangqi and the river
2. Five in a row
3. Tangram and nonograms
4. Folded fortunes
5. Printing and playing with Paperoom

Xiangqi and the river

Xiangqi, often called Chinese chess, is played on the intersections of a board of 9 × 10 lines. A river (楚河 漢界, "Chu River, Han border") crosses the middle. Each general stays inside a 3 × 3 palace, and the two generals may not face each other on an open line. Red moves first, and cannons capture by jumping over exactly one piece. You can print a xiangqi board for a table game.

Five in a row

Gomoku, known in China as wuziqi (五子棋), is a game of getting five in a row. It is played on the intersections of a Go board, or with X and O on squared paper, and it is called gomoku in Japan. Its core rule is simple, which makes gomoku easy to teach to a newcomer.

Tangram and nonograms

Tangram (七巧板) is cut from a square into seven pieces: five triangles, a square and a parallelogram. Chinese books described it in the early 1800s, and it became a craze in Europe and America around 1817.

Nonograms are picture logic puzzles devised in Japan in the late 1980s. The numbers beside each row and column give the lengths of the filled runs, and the solver works out the picture square by square. You can print a nonogram puzzle to try the method.

Folded fortunes

The paper fortune teller is an origami game with many names, including cootie catcher in English, comecocos in Spain and 东南西北 ("east south west north") in Chinese. It is folded from one square sheet, and players choose numbers or colours to reveal a message. You can make one from a fortune teller sheet.

Printing and playing with Paperoom

Paperoom is free, works in your browser and needs no account. The interface is available in Simplified Chinese and five other languages, and you can type your own words in any script. Choose A4 or US Letter, print at 100% scale with headers and footers off, and print one test sheet before a large batch.