Ajosshis in the Park

Filed as: Korea and Culture // Responses: 29

If you couldn’t tell from our last video on Korean Foot Massages, we just bought a new camera, a Canon 550d (also known as a T2i). Woohoo! Anyhow, we were feeling artsy-fartsy with this new camera of ours, so we decided to make a video of something we’ve always found awesome: old Korean guys playing chess games in the park. They’re cold, but they bundle up and gather round to play games that we don’t know the rules to (or even the names of!). What we find most interesting is how so many people gather round to watch them play; there are more spectators than players. We decided to be among the spectators.

If any of you know anything about these games, please let us know. We think it’s like chess, with kings and queens and pawns, but the pieces are different. The game in black and white we haven’t a clue about.

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Undakova

Oh my god the talent reeks from off of you guys. I am not sure if you try hard or it just is you know what you are doing ahead of time. I love it. Classic shots and classic music pick. LOVE IT!!

Matt

This is one of the best short films about korea I've seen. I look forward to seeing many more!

http://www.eatyourkimchi.com Eatyourkimchi

Thanks Matt! I'd love to make more movies like this, and plan on doing so :D

Andrew Stephens

Beautiful footage. Really well shot :D

Love the site!
ì„œ ì§„ìˆ˜ / çœŸä¿®

Nice video!

The game in black and white is called ë°”ë‘‘ (Baduk) and the English name (which is from Japanese) is "Go". You can read more about it here. The rules are extremely simple (it's about capturing territory) but the strategies are extremely complex. It's one of the games that computers are terrible at; a go player of even moderate talent can beat any computer.

The game which looks like chess is called ìž¥ê¸° (Janggi) and is a variation of a game from China. I've always wanted to learn how to play. There information on wikipedia here
Alex

OOOoo I'm liking this a lot. Veery exciting.

So it looks like I may be headed to Korea this summer. Thank you guys for answering so many questions for me. Can't wait!
J. Griffin Stewart

WOW!!! Nice work on the video! Looks beautiful!! Can't wait to see future updates from y'all with the new gear!
Chris in South Korea

I wrote about jangji (Korean chess) at http://chrisinsouthkorea.blogspot.com/2009/09/life-in-korea-playing-korean-chess.html – just try to imagine the look on the ajosshi's face when they lose to a foreigner :)
Phoenix

beautiful camera work!! love it!!
the ultimate monthly challenge

Beautiful work.
Jealous because Im itching to get a good camera.
Are you going to the Jeonju International Film Festival?
If not you should be, its lots of fun. I love going every year.

http://www.jiff.or.kr

Email me if you if you have any questions.

Keith
the ultimate monthly challenge

Beautiful work.
Jealous because Im itching to get a good camera.
Are you going to the Jeonju International Film Festival?
If not you should be, its lots of fun. I love going every year.

http://www.jiff.or.kr

Email me if you if you have any questions.

Keith
Anna

wow – after watching this…
I need a fucking cigarette hhaha
jayallday

Tob-gol(íƒ‘ê³¨) park in jongno by any chance? I remember seeing those scences there years ago haha.

Anyhow, I'll just drop some infos I know here- Baduk(ë°”ë‘‘) and janggi(ìž¥ê¸°),they both originated from china and are widely played in far east asia for long. From what I've heared it's invented by some old china emperor to teach his son patience, concentration and stuff.
While janggi is pretty much like chess and people play it just for fun, baduk can be much more serious, and complicated than that. Many big competitions are regularly hosted with huge sponsers here and there, and pro players are getting respect and highly paid (and among the players most outstanding players happen to be koreans!). Well just look around then you'll be surprised that there are even hakwons(í•™ì›) for that! I also used to go one when I was young lol.

Enjoyed the post by the way. Cool video with great quality! expecting the next one. cheers!
Lucy

Your new DSLR shoots video beautifully! Which I'm sure is party due to your skills too. Can I ask which lens you guys got with the Canon 550d?
Eat Your Kimchi

Thanks everyone. The lens we use is a simple 50mm f/1.8. It's really cheap, but we like it!
J

what is that gorgeous song?

i love the video — thank you for capturing that moment.

similarly admire the folks who play chess/checkers outside of au bon pain in harvard square.
Jo K.

I am sooooooo impressed Simon…we're taking eatyourkimchi to the next level after I saw this clip. iOS and Android…here we come!
smorphie

Real nice!
gulzameenkhan

Wow…awesome.I've been watching your videos for a long time. They all are worth watching but this one is really a beautiful piece of artistic work. BTW can i ask you something? Which software do u use for editing?

http://www.eatyourkimchi.com Eatyourkimchi

Thank you! Glad you like it. We use Final Cut Pro and – for this movie in particular – the Magic Bullet Mojo plugin. It's great for color correction.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_5IASVNKPM45DVB6NUSDAIVFJKM Michaelaleigh Green

I actually recognized Baduk or Go. I’m from America and read alot of Manga and there is one called Hikaru No Go which is about a haunted Go board lol so it surprised me to see something i actually knew about.

natalynn chun

Â japanese used a lot of chinese concepts i believe. this game is from chinese descent…LOL that sounded funny. uhh like this is an old chinese game. and i believe that korea and japan borrowed this game :D yayayaayay spreading culture :D

Alexis Okosa

me thinks me played the black and white game on me computer before. me thinks you have to try to have more of the squares filled with your color piece than your opponent. and the way you turn them your color is by “book ending” a row of your opponents pieces with two of your pieces. me thinks! i haz no idea what the name of that game could be. i seriously just recall playing it on my computer when i was like 8
natalynn chun

hahahhaaa! the elderly men do this here in SF too. in chinatown at least ahhahaaa
natalynn chun

oh wait…the black and white game is like othello right? O.O it looks like it lolol and the other one is chinese chess. idk another name for it, but its also played in chinese and japanese culture :D its basically an asian version of chess LOL :D
ithaca

It’s Go! The black and white one.Â You capture territory by fencing it off with your pieces, then whoever has the most at the end wins.
http://twitter.com/lyddish ë¦¬ë””ì•„

The first one’s Chinese Chess or Xiangqi (è±¡æ£‹ – literally Elephant Chess). The characters on the chess mean the General (å°†) aka the “King” – it works pretty much like International Chess, all the pieces try to protect the General and try to take the opponent’s General.Â

There is a set placement for the start of the game – the General (å°†), Guards (å£«), Elephant (è±¡), Horse (é©¬) and Chariot (è»Š) stands one line at the side, while the Cannon (ç‚®) and theÂ Soldiers (å…µ or å’) stand in the frontline.Â

Like at 0:23, the é©¬ (Horse) takes theÂ å’ (Pawn) by moving in the L shape (like the horse does for International Chess). Every piece has a different way of moving – for example, the Chariot gets to zoom in straight lines like the Castle. The Elephant is like the Bishop which moves diagonally, but it can only move 2 boxes away. The Guards are stuck to the mini box to take care of the General.

They have different names for the same pieces for the Red and the Green sides though, so it may be confusing – it may be calledÂ å’ (Pawn) for the Green, but it’s called å…µ (Soldier) on the Red side.

Well I guess Wikipedia is the place to go for full instructions and history of the game so:Â http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi

—–

The second one’s Reversi or Othello as mentioned, basically you have to block the ends of your opponent’s pieces, so if you are white, you have to turn all the black pieces to white. To turn the opponent’s piece to your colour, you need to create a connection like.. if it looks like this: O x x x x O all the x x x x in between the O and O will turn into O O O O O O. Yeah..

At the end of the game, the player with the most pieces of their colour on the board wins~Â

Here’s the Wiki page lol for clearer explanation I guess ^^;; :Â http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversi

I play the Chinese Chess a lot more than Reversi but these two games are pretty common over here in Singapore :)

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000126950937 June Destiny Lim

The Second game is not a reversi or othello – it’s called baduk;바둑 and it’s is similar to both chess and Jang-gi (장기/Xiangqi) but the rules are very very complecated. Basically you have to trap the opponants rocks to make a ‘house’ and the one with the bigger house at the end of the game, wins.

http://twitter.com/rheadsouza89 Rhea DSouza

Wow, the video looks amazing. I just bought a Rebel T3i so I am pretty excited about using it after seeing this video!