Ô ăn quan is a traditional Vietnamese

Vietnamese people

The Vietnamese people are an ethnic group originating from present-day northern Vietnam and southern China. They are the majority ethnic group of Vietnam, comprising 86% of the population as of the 1999 census, and are officially known as Kinh to distinguish them from other ethnic groups in Vietnam...

 children's board game

Board game

A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...

, primarily played by 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

Vietnam Museum of Ethnology

The Vietnam Museum of Ethnology is a museum in Hanoi, Vietnam, which focuses on the 54 officially recognized ethnic groups in Vietnam. It is located on a property in the Cầu Giấy District, about 8 km from the city center....

 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

Mancala

Mancala is a family of board games played around the world, sometimes called "sowing" games, or "count-and-capture" games, which describes the game-play. Mancala games play a role in many African and some Asian societies comparable to that of chess in the West, or the game of Go in Eastern Asia...

.

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

Betel

The Betel is the leaf of a vine belonging to the Piperaceae family, which includes pepper and Kava. It is valued both as a mild stimulant and for its medicinal properties...

 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

Incense

Incense is composed of aromatic biotic materials, which release fragrant smoke when burned. The term "incense" refers to the substance itself, rather than to the odor that it produces. It is used in religious ceremonies, ritual purification, aromatherapy, meditation, for creating a mood, and for...

 stall, the flower stall

Là hàng cúng Phật. Be stalls for offering the Buddha

Buddha

In Buddhism, buddhahood is the state of perfect enlightenment attained by a buddha .In Buddhism, the term buddha usually refers to one who has become enlightened...

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In literature

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