Ô ăn quan

Vietnamese children play "Ô ăn quan"

"Ô ăn quan" board

Ô ăn quan (literally: Mandarin Square Capturing) is a traditional Vietnamese children's board game, primarily played by^{[citation needed]} girls. This game is valuable for enhancing calculating ability.

Board, pieces, and players

• A rectangle which is divided into ten squares (5x2) with two semicircles at the head and the bottom is drawn on the floor or the yard. Ten squares are called: "rice field square", "fish pond square" or "citizen square" and two semicircles are called "Mandarin square".
• Pieces are stones, fruit seeds or any other small things.
• Two players or two teams sit in two sides of the board. Each controls one side of the board.

History

The game's origin is still a mystery to Vietnamese people as it has been played for many years. Many people said Vietnamese ancestors were inspired by green rice fields to invent a game that can be played in those huge fields. At first, the game had become quite popular throughout the country. However, as time passed Vietnamese children no longer had the same passion for the game like those in the past. It is one of the reasons why the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology is exhibiting the game with fully explained instructions with the aim of keeping the game alive among children nowadays.

According to many researchers, Ô Ăn Quan belongs to Mancala.

Rules

Setup

Each player places one big stone or ten small stones (called Mandarin piece) in the Mandarin square as well as five small stones (called citizen piece) in each of the rice field squares.

Object

The game ends when all the pieces are captured.

If both two Mandarin pieces are captured, the remaining citizen pieces are belong to the player controlling the side that these pieces are on. There is a Vietnamese saying to express this situation: "hết quan, tàn dân, thu quân, bán ruộng" (literally: "Mandarin doesn't exit, citizen go to seed, getting the army out, selling the rice field") or "hết quan, tàn dân, thu quân, kéo về" (literally: "Mandarin doesn't exit, citizen go to seed, getting the army out, coming back")

Whichever player has more pieces is the winner (a Mandarin piece is equal to ten or five citizen pieces).

Scattering

Players play rock paper scissors to determine the first player.

The first player takes up all the pieces of any rice field square on his/her side of the board and distributes (Vietnamese: rải: literally: scatter) one piece per square starting at the next square in either direction (to the right or left). When all five pieces are distributed, the player repeats by taking up the pieces of the following square and distributing them.

If his/her side of the board is empty, he/she must use five won-pieces to place one piece down in each square on his/her side and repeats the distribution. If he/she do not possess any won-piece, he/she must borrow a piece from the other player and return it when counting the points at the end of the game.

Capturing

When the next square to be distributed is empty, the player wins all the pieces in the square after that. The square that contains a lot of pieces is the nhà giàu square (literally: rich square).

The player must give the turn to other player when the next square is an empty Mandarin square or the two next squares are empty.

The Mandarin square can contain little citizen pieces called quan non (literally: quan: Madarin, non: young/unripen) and sometimes the rules do not permit players to capture these citizen pieces.

Song

The song (Vietnamese: đồng dao) is used when playing this game:

Hàng trầu hàng cau The betel stall, the areca nut stall

Là hàng con gái Be stalls of girls

Hàng bánh hàng trái The cake stall, the fruit stall

Là hàng bà già Be stalls of old women

Hàng hương hàng hoa The incense stall, the flower stall

Là hàng cúng Phật. Be stalls for offering the Buddha.

In science

• Mạc Hiển Tích invented số ẩn (negative number) from the law of this game.

In literature

• Saying: "Một đập ăn quan" - literally: "one move captures Mandarin piece": expressing a successful result getting from a simple act.

Variant

This game can transform to the game for three or four players.

See also

• List of Vietnamese traditional games