Re: 'Winds' vs 'Arrows' for zhong and fa

When there are seemingly conflicting sources for information
concerning MJ history I try to think of a plausible explanation that
may make all sources at least partially true. The following could be
one such speculation.

If Chen Yumen was at least in part responsible for the early
development of MJ, then it would be very interesting if more
information on him was brought to light. About all I know is what is
given on Tom's site. If he was a military or government official whose
hometown was Ningbo and who fought against the Taiping, then after
that conflict he could have returned home and introduced some version
of MJ there. If he was summoned to court in Beijing to make a report
on the conflict, then he could have introduced a version of MJ there.
The likely times for these events to have occurred would have been
between the end of the Taiping Rebellion in 1864 and Chen's death in
1878. Within this short time span, one person could have been
responsible for introducing two different versions of the game in two
different locations, both of which are considered as possible
locations for the development of MJ (and thus contributing to the
confusing differences given by different sources). The Beijing version
could have adopted the dragon + phoenix symbols to represent the
Emperor and Empress in the Imperial court, while the version in Ningbo
could have used zhong + fa as more civilian symbols (their possible
meanings still being less than clear although zhong could have
represented the center direction at this time).

So the question is does anyone have additional information on Chen
Yumen?

With the Imperial ranks, Dragon and Phoenix symbolism, etc. shown in
the Sheng Xuanhuai set, does anyone know if this was collected in
Beijing? I would expect it to have been, in contrast to the other
early sets which were collected in southern China in Ningbo, Shanghai
and vicinity.

Could Kwong's writing indicate that the Hong Kong sets originated from
the Beijing versions that apparently included the Dragon and Phoenix,
rather than the closer Ningbo or Shanghai locations whose versions
apparently had the zhong and fa tiles instead?

I'll be out of town the next two weeks so I will not reply again till
I get back, but I hope to hear from others.

Dan

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