KLC Chess Cultural Exchange Program on CHESS LIFE
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​美国官方国际象棋杂志CHESS LIFE ​头版报道KLC中美国际象棋文化交流项目

《CHESS LIFE》是美国国际象棋协会官方发布的国际象棋杂志，已有70多年的历史，是美国最权威的国际象棋杂志。被称为“世界阅读最多的国际象棋杂志”每月阅读量超过25万。本杂志主要集中报道美国国际象棋棋手和赛事，名局分析以及国际象棋新闻。与《CHESS LIFE》杂志配套的《CHESS LIFE FOR KIDS》是专门为14岁以下的棋童们而编写的。里面包括国际象棋趣味战术和启发孩子学习国际象棋兴趣的卡通解说，深受棋童们喜欢。

​美国国际象棋协会（United States Chess Federation）记者Jamaal Abdul-Alim 先生对King’s Land Chess (KLC) 扬“帆”棋航中美文化交流项目产生了浓厚的兴趣，他特别采访了KLC项目策划人Kiki女士并在去年12月的杂志上发布了《Living The Dream》。文章生动的介绍了Kiki女士的童年，策划此项目的初衷以及她在美国青少年国际象棋发展做出的贡献。KLC国际象棋中美文化交流是第一个建立在以国际象棋为主题的交流项目，项目内容丰富，其中与加州最为著名的五大俱乐部进行了友好交流。其中包括：超越棋院，California Youth Chess League , North Cal House of Chess, Bay Area Chess， Berkeley Chess School。
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“小时候我有一个梦想，希望通过国际象棋环游世界。现在长大了，我还有一个梦想，希望通过国际象棋了解世界，” Kiki女士这样回答Jamaal Abdul-Alim先生。她希望孩子通过这个项目学到的不仅仅是棋艺知识，更能通过国际象棋为媒介去了解不同的文化，取其精华，共同进步，发展成为国际型人才。活动主旨：丰富人生，创造未来，棋行天下，智通四海！
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Jamaal Abdul-Alim先生还对California Youth Chess League（CYCL）的创始人Jay Stallings 先生进行了采访。“每一次你跨出国门，去看看世界的时候，都将会开阔你的眼界。”Jay Stallings在采访中说道。 希望棋手们在此项目学到的不仅仅是国际象棋的知识，而是用心去看世界，在以后的抉择上面具有顽强的信念和勇气。是的，棋如人生， 人生如棋，下好人生中的每一步棋 ，你将是人生的赢家。

​KLC希望通过国际象棋，建起中美国际象棋文化的友谊之桥。
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Living The Dream

December 2015 edition First Moves

​By Jamaal Abdul-Alim
 
King’s Land Chess, a California-based organization, is impacting the world of chess by exposing young people to other parts of the world.
Back when Ke “”Kiki Chen played on China’s national youth team, she had little time for anything besides chess-not even school.
 
“Because as part of the youth team, you represent the country,” Chen, 29, explained of the situation for the nation’s young team players back in the late 1990s.
 
But Chen still found time to dream.
 
Today, Chen is living out her dreams as founding director of King’s Land Chess, a California-based chess organization that is impacting the world of chess by exposing young people to other parts of the world.

“It’s my dream to promote chess and youth,” Chen said. “Our goal is try to develop chess in different cultures.”
 
This past summer, King’s Land Chess hosted nine young players from the Shanghai Little World Chess Club as part of a cultural exchange program that involved a 15-day tour of California.

The tour included visits to five local youth chess clubs, playing in a couple of tournaments-including the Pacific Coast Open-and visits to some of California’s most prestigious universities, such as University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Los Angeles and Stanford.

A major focus was for the kids from Shanghai to interact with their young counterparts from California so that both groups got a chance learn about each other through the game they share in common.
 
“It was very educational for both sides to realize that this game could bring kids together,” said Jay Stallings, founder and director of the California Youth Chess League, one of five local chess clubs that the children from Shanghai visited.

“Even though they didn’t share a language, they shared the game of chess.”
 
Chen wanted the experience to be as fun as it was educational. So she made bughouse and basketball part games got to challenge a chess master.

“At the end of the day I asked the kids from the Shanghai Chess Club which activity they like. They loved basketball.” Chen said, explaining that it was a rare experience for kids from China to be able to play basketball besides chess. “They find it really exciting and they love it.”

But the kids from Shanghai also learned practical things in preparation for their tournaments, such as how to offer a draw in English.

“They need to learn English and about chess,” Chen said.

Chen had her own eye-opening experience about English during her chess-playing days in China.

“When I was on the national youth team in China, I spoke no English,” Chen said. But after she went to play in Hong Kong, English was common place among her young peers. That made her want to learn English herself and different things beyond chess.
 
But as a member of the national youth chess, she was required to play or study chess as much as eight hours a day. Her parents wanted her to go to college.
 
“My parents told me you cannot just play chess,” said Chen, who joined China’s youth team in 1999 at age 12, when she won the Shenzhen Junior Chess Championship and third place in the Under 14 National Chess Open in China.
“Then I quit chess and went back to school,” Chen said. “But if I chose to stay in the national team, I can’t go to school.”
 
After she finished her studies in business at Beijing Geely University, Chen landed and internship in hotel management in the United States in 2010. During that time, as she reflected on her youth in China, she conceived of the idea for a chess-based cultural exchange program. Chen, who had a peak FIDE rating of 2149 back in the year 2000, eventually obtained a United States visa for people with “extraordinary ability.”
 
Stallings wrote a letter of recommendation for the visa on her behalf.
 
“It was an easy letter to write because she just is giving, giving,” said Stallings, who recalled how Chen volunteered to serve as a tournament director for the California state championship that he ran in 2013. Chen volunteered in subsequent championships as well.
 
“She wasn’t one of those cold, hard tournament directors,” Stallings said. “When you’re a tournament director in the under 300 section, kids are just getting into tournaments for the first time, you need to take a different approach.  She was very understanding with the children and helpful. It was really great to see that.”
 
Chen said she plans to do another cultural exchange program with kid from China in the summer of 2016. And in the summer of 2017, she hopes to take children from the United States to visit China to see firsthand how the children in China approach chess.
 
“I’m sure they can learn from that and get some ideas from a different culture,” Chen said.
 
Stallings applauds Chen for her efforts to use chess to expose children to different parts of the world.
 
“Anytime that you travel abroad it opens up your eyes,” Stallings said. “The more of these cultural exchanges that happen, the better our world is going to be.