Author/Illustrator Kam Mak Follows Up on How to Play Jungle

During Kam Mak's recent Lower School reading, the kids were fascinated when he showed them his favorite childhood pasttime from Hong Kong, Jungle or Dou Shou Qi (Traditional Chinese: 鬥獸棋, Game of Fighting Animals), a traditional Chinese board game pictured in his vivid book, My Chinatown. He told the kids that the colorful graphics had sparked his imagination and inspired him as a child.

He kindly emailed a follow up: "Here's how to play!" Also known as jungle chess or animal chess, it's a two-player, abstract strategy game which resembles the western game Stratego. Jungle can be found inexpensively in stationery stores in Chinatown.

And how's this for a fun piece of Kam Mak trivia: The magnolia tree set to bloom any day now in City Hall Park—between Tweed's west gate and Broadway, just inside the Chambers Street fence—was the reference for his beautiful painting below for the children's book The Moon of the Monarch Butterflies. (Thanks for the follow up, Kam!)