Many old men were playing Korean chess called Janggi in the park

older man playing Korean chess — Man playing Korean chess

The park was crowded with elderly men. They did not look like people who had merely stopped to rest during a walk; their expressions suggested that this place had been their destination from the start. It soon became clear why. They had gathered here to play janggi, Korean chess. The man in the flat cap in the photograph was one of them. Sitting directly on the ground, he stared quietly at a simple board laid out in front of him, lost in thought. In the middle of a vast city like Seoul, this scene blended in with surprising ease.

Peering down at a janggi board, I noticed how different it looked from Japanese shogi. What caught my eye first were the diagonal lines drawn across the board. These lines do not exist in Japanese chess, and to an amateur they invite unnecessary speculation—surely the pieces must move diagonally as well. In reality, the game is far more methodical, and careless moves are quickly punished. That said, I would not trust myself to explain the precise differences between janggi and xiangqi, Chinese chess, simply by looking at the board. At times, they seem suspiciously alike.

A bit of reading reveals that Japanese shogi, Chinese xiangqi, and Korean janggi all trace their origins back to an ancient Indian game known as chaturanga. With that in mind, the board in front of me suddenly felt like a miniature international conference table. The men playing, however, appeared entirely indifferent to such genealogies. The man in the flat cap rested his chin in his hand, took his time, and eventually placed his next piece with quiet deliberation. Whether it was a brilliant move or a disastrous one, I had no way of knowing. What I could feel, unmistakably, was the density of the silence around the board—far heavier than the noise of the city beyond the park.

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